Next Generation Sequencing Reveals the Hidden Diversity of Zooplankton Assemblages

Background

Zooplankton play an important role in our oceans, in biogeochemical cycling and providing a food source for commercially important fish larvae. However, difficulties in correctly identifying zooplankton hinder our understanding of their roles in marine ecosystem functioning, and can prevent detection of long term changes in their community structure. The advent of massively parallel next generation sequencing technology allows DNA sequence data to be recovered directly from whole community samples. Here we assess the ability of such sequencing to quantify richness and diversity of a mixed zooplankton assemblage from a productive time series site in the Western English Channel.

Methodology/Principle Findings

Plankton net hauls (200 µm) were taken at the Western Channel Observatory station L4 in September 2010 and January 2011. These samples were analysed by microscopy and metagenetic analysis of the 18S nuclear small subunit ribosomal RNA gene using the 454 pyrosequencing platform. Following quality control a total of 419,041 sequences were obtained for all samples. The sequences clustered into 205 operational taxonomic units using a 97% similarity cut-off. Allocation of taxonomy by comparison with the National Centre for Biotechnology Information database identified 135 OTUs to species level, 11 to genus level and 1 to order, <2.5% of sequences were classified as unknowns. By comparison a skilled microscopic analyst was able to routinely enumerate only 58 taxonomic groups.

Conclusions

Metagenetics reveals a previously hidden taxonomic richness, especially for Copepoda and hard-to-identify meroplankton such as Bivalvia, Gastropoda and Polychaeta. It also reveals rare species and parasites. We conclude that Next Generation Sequencing of 18S amplicons is a powerful tool for elucidating the true diversity and species richness of zooplankton communities. While this approach allows for broad diversity assessments of plankton it may become increasingly attractive in future if sequence reference libraries of accurately identified individuals are better populated.     

Bacterial Community and Diversity from the Watermelon Cultivated Soils through Next Generation Sequencing Approach

Knowledge and better understanding of functions of the microbial community are pivotal for crop management. This study was conducted to study bacterial structures including Acidovorax species community structures and diversity from the watermelon cultivated soils in different regions of South Korea. In this study, soil samples were collected from watermelon cultivation areas from various places of South Korea and microbiome analysis was performed to analyze bacterial communities including Acidovorax species community. Next generation sequencing (NGS) was performed by extracting genomic DNA from 92 soil samples from 8 different provinces using a fast genomic DNA extraction kit. NGS data analysis results revealed that, total, 39,367 operational taxonomic unit (OTU), were obtained. NGS data results revealed that, most dominant phylum in all the soil samples was Proteobacteria (37.3%). In addition, most abundant genus was Acidobacterium (1.8%) in all the samples. In order to analyze species diversity among the collected soil samples, OTUs, community diversity, and Shannon index were measured. Shannon (9.297) and inverse Simpson (0.996) were found to have the highest diversity scores in the greenhouse soil sample of Gyeonggi-do province (GG4). Results from NGS sequencing suggest that, most of the soil samples consists of similar trend of bacterial community and diversity. Environmental factors play a key role in shaping the bacterial community and diversity. In order to address this statement, further correlation analysis between soil physical and chemical parameters with dominant bacterial community will be carried out to observe their interactions.     

Next Generation Sequencing in der diagnostischen Praxis

Next generation sequencing (NGS) allows whole exome or whole genome sequencing for a given patient to be performed timely and at reasonable cost. This diagnostic quantum leap not only has various legal, ethical and economical aspects but will naturally also impact upon patient care. Currently, however, the wide-spread introduction of NGS into routine diagnostics is facing many obstacles. In particular, it is to be expected that NGS will identify a large number of rare variants in a given patient that are of (yet) unknown clinical significance. As a first step towards solving this problem, we introduce the concept of a database that will systematically integrate genotypic and phenotypic information from the German health care context. Not only will this resource be of great scientific value, but the database shall also provide human geneticists with the evidence base necessary for the reliable evaluation of their patient-related sequencing data.     

DNA提取对微生物多样性测序分析的影响

运用高通量测序技术分析复杂样品中微生物种群的变化情况,已经成为目前微生物研究领域的热点问题之一。而微生物的样品准备,如DNA提取和16S可变区的扩增等,对于测序完成后的数据分析以及微生物原始群落组成的影响是至关重要的。采用国产试剂盒(天根土壤微生物基因组提取试剂盒)和进口试剂盒(MOBIO土壤微生物基因组提取试剂盒)分别对土壤样品和羊瘤胃食糜样品进行DNA提取。然后选取总DNA起始量为25ng,对16S V3可变区进行PCR扩增和文库构建,最后通过数据分析比较不同试剂盒提取的DNA对微生物多样性变化的影响,包括OTU数目、稀释曲线、微生物数量及物种种类等。研究发现,在相同DNA模板量和PCR条件下,进口试剂盒提取的DNA能够获得更多的微生物种类。     

Short Barcodes for Next Generation Sequencing

We consider the design and evaluation of short barcodes, with a length between six and eight nucleotides, used for parallel sequencing on platforms where substitution errors dominate. Such codes should have not only good error correction properties but also the code words should fulfil certain biological constraints (experimental parameters). We compare published barcodes with codes obtained by two new constructions methods, one based on the currently best known linear codes and a simple randomized construction method. The evaluation done is with respect to the error correction capabilities, barcode size and their experimental parameters and fundamental bounds on the code size and their distance properties. We provide a list of codes for lengths between six and eight nucleotides, where for length eight, two substitution errors can be corrected. In fact, no code with larger minimum distance can exist.     

二代及三代测序技术在遗传学诊断中的应用进展

遗传病的防治是公共卫生领域的重大课题,而明确病因是遗传病防治的重要环节。高通量测序技术（又称二代测序技术）具有高通量、低成本、高准确度的优点,为遗传诊断及咨询提供了直接证据,已成为遗传学检测不可或缺的有力工具;第三代测序也凭借其长读长的独特优势在临床应用中占据一席之地。二代及三代测序技术各有特点,互为补充,临床中针对不同的检测需求有多种类型的测序方案可供选择。基于此,对二代及三代测序技术的原理、分类及其在遗传学诊断中的应用进展做一综述,以期为临床测序方案的选择提供思路和指导。     

Impact of Next Generation Sequencing Techniques in Food Microbiology

Understanding the Maxam-Gilbert and Sanger sequencing as the first generation, in recent years there has been an explosion of newly-developed sequencing strategies, which are usually referred to as next generation sequencing (NGS) techniques. NGS techniques have high-throughputs and produce thousands or even millions of sequences at the same time. These sequences allow for the accurate identification of microbial taxa, including uncultivable organisms and those present in small numbers. In specific applications, NGS provides a complete inventory of all microbial operons and genes present or being expressed under different study conditions. NGS techniques are revolutionizing the field of microbial ecology and have recently been used to examine several food ecosystems. After a short introduction to the most common NGS systems and platforms, this review addresses how NGS techniques have been employed in the study of food microbiota and food fermentations, and discusses their limits and perspectives. The most important findings are reviewed, including those made in the study of the microbiota of milk, fermented dairy products, and plant-, meat- and fish-derived fermented foods. The knowledge that can be gained on microbial diversity, population structure and population dynamics via the use of these technologies could be vital in improving the monitoring and manipulation of foods and fermented food products. They should also improve their safety.     

ANGSD: Analysis of Next Generation Sequencing Data

Background

High-throughput DNA sequencing technologies are generating vast amounts of data. Fast, flexible and memory efficient implementations are needed in order to facilitate analyses of thousands of samples simultaneously.

Results

We present a multithreaded program suite called ANGSD. This program can calculate various summary statistics, and perform association mapping and population genetic analyses utilizing the full information in next generation sequencing data by working directly on the raw sequencing data or by using genotype likelihoods.

Conclusions

The open source c/c++ program ANGSD is available at http://www.popgen.dk/angsd. The program is tested and validated on GNU/Linux systems. The program facilitates multiple input formats including BAM and imputed beagle genotype probability files. The program allow the user to choose between combinations of existing methods and can perform analysis that is not implemented elsewhere.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12859-014-0356-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Pros and Cons of Ion-Torrent Next Generation Sequencing versus Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism T-RFLP for Studying the Rumen Bacterial Community

The development of next generation sequencing has challenged the use of other molecular fingerprinting methods used to study microbial diversity. We analysed the bacterial diversity in the rumen of defaunated sheep following the introduction of different protozoal populations, using both next generation sequencing (NGS: Ion Torrent PGM) and terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP). Although absolute number differed, there was a high correlation between NGS and T-RFLP in terms of richness and diversity with R values of 0.836 and 0.781 for richness and Shannon-Wiener index, respectively. Dendrograms for both datasets were also highly correlated (Mantel test = 0.742). Eighteen OTUs and ten genera were significantly impacted by the addition of rumen protozoa, with an increase in the relative abundance of Prevotella, Bacteroides and Ruminobacter, related to an increase in free ammonia levels in the rumen. Our findings suggest that classic fingerprinting methods are still valuable tools to study microbial diversity and structure in complex environments but that NGS techniques now provide cost effect alternatives that provide a far greater level of information on the individual members of the microbial population.     

第二代测序在检测人类基因突变中的应用

很多的人类疾病与基因突变有关,基因突变在疾病的诊断和治疗中起到了至关重要的作用.第二代高通量测序,其特点为通量高、速度快、成本低,给检测基因突变带来了革命性的变化.该技术检测基因突变的流程简单,研究人员运用全基因组从测序,目标基因组测序以及转录组测序能够实现基因突变的全方位、高准确的检测.     

Collection and Extraction of Saliva DNA for Next Generation Sequencing

The preferred source of DNA in human genetics research is blood, or cell lines derived from blood, as these sources yield large quantities of high quality DNA. However, DNA extraction from saliva can yield high quality DNA with little to no degradation/fragmentation that is suitable for a variety of DNA assays without the expense of a phlebotomist and can even be acquired through the mail. However, at present, no saliva DNA collection/extraction protocols for next generation sequencing have been presented in the literature. This protocol optimizes parameters of saliva collection/storage and DNA extraction to be of sufficient quality and quantity for DNA assays with the highest standards, including microarray genotyping and next generation sequencing.     

Using Next Generation Sequencing for Multiplexed Trait-Linked Markers in Wheat

With the advent of next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have become the major type of marker for genotyping in many crops. However, the availability of SNP markers for important traits of bread wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) that can be effectively used in marker-assisted selection (MAS) is still limited and SNP assays for MAS are usually uniplex. A shift from uniplex to multiplex assays will allow the simultaneous analysis of multiple markers and increase MAS efficiency. We designed 33 locus-specific markers from SNP or indel-based marker sequences that linked to 20 different quantitative trait loci (QTL) or genes of agronomic importance in wheat and analyzed the amplicon sequences using an Ion Torrent Proton Sequencer and a custom allele detection pipeline to determine the genotypes of 24 selected germplasm accessions. Among the 33 markers, 27 were successfully multiplexed and 23 had 100% SNP call rates. Results from analysis of "kompetitive allele-specific PCR" (KASP) and sequence tagged site (STS) markers developed from the same loci fully verified the genotype calls of 23 markers. The NGS-based multiplexed assay developed in this study is suitable for rapid and high-throughput screening of SNPs and some indel-based markers in wheat.     

AdapterRemoval: Easy Cleaning of Next Generation Sequencing Reads

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: With the advent of next-generation sequencing there is an increased demand for tools to pre-process and handle the vast amounts of data generated. One recurring problem is adapter contamination in the reads, i.e. the partial or complete sequencing of adapter sequences. These adapter sequences have to be removed as they can hinder correct mapping of the reads and influence SNP calling and other downstream analyses. FINDINGS: We present a tool called AdapterRemoval which is able to pre-process both single and paired-end data. The program locates and removes adapter residues from the reads, it is able to combine paired reads if they overlap, and it can optionally trim low-quality nucleotides. Furthermore, it can look for adapter sequence in both the 5' and 3' ends of the reads. This is a flexible method that can be tuned to accommodate different experimental settings and sequencing platforms producing FASTQ files. AdapterRemoval is shown to be good at trimming adapters from both single-end and paired-end data. CONCLUSIONS: AdapterRemoval is a comprehensive tool for analyzing next-generation sequencing data. It exhibits good performance both in terms of sensitivity and specificity. AdapterRemoval has already been used in various large projects and it is possible to extend it further to accommodate application-specific biases in the data.     

Estimating Individual Admixture Proportions from Next Generation Sequencing Data

Inference of population structure and individual ancestry is important both for population genetics and for association studies. With next generation sequencing technologies it is possible to obtain genetic data for all accessible genetic variations in the genome. Existing methods for admixture analysis rely on known genotypes. However, individual genotypes cannot be inferred from low-depth sequencing data without introducing errors. This article presents a new method for inferring an individual’s ancestry that takes the uncertainty introduced in next generation sequencing data into account. This is achieved by working directly with genotype likelihoods that contain all relevant information of the unobserved genotypes. Using simulations as well as publicly available sequencing data, we demonstrate that the presented method has great accuracy even for very low-depth data. At the same time, we demonstrate that applying existing methods to genotypes called from the same data can introduce severe biases. The presented method is implemented in the NGSadmix software available at http://www.popgen.dk/software.     

Challenges with Using Primer IDs to Improve Accuracy of Next Generation Sequencing

Next generation sequencing technologies, like ultra-deep pyrosequencing (UDPS), allows detailed investigation of complex populations, like RNA viruses, but its utility is limited by errors introduced during sample preparation and sequencing. By tagging each individual cDNA molecule with barcodes, referred to as Primer IDs, before PCR and sequencing these errors could theoretically be removed. Here we evaluated the Primer ID methodology on 257,846 UDPS reads generated from a HIV-1 SG3Δenv plasmid clone and plasma samples from three HIV-infected patients. The Primer ID consisted of 11 randomized nucleotides, 4,194,304 combinations, in the primer for cDNA synthesis that introduced a unique sequence tag into each cDNA molecule. Consensus template sequences were constructed for reads with Primer IDs that were observed three or more times. Despite high numbers of input template molecules, the number of consensus template sequences was low. With 10,000 input molecules for the clone as few as 97 consensus template sequences were obtained due to highly skewed frequency of resampling. Furthermore, the number of sequenced templates was overestimated due to PCR errors in the Primer IDs. Finally, some consensus template sequences were erroneous due to hotspots for UDPS errors. The Primer ID methodology has the potential to provide highly accurate deep sequencing. However, it is important to be aware that there are remaining challenges with the methodology. In particular it is important to find ways to obtain a more even frequency of resampling of template molecules as well as to identify and remove artefactual consensus template sequences that have been generated by PCR errors in the Primer IDs.     

Rumen Bacterial Diversity of 80 to 110-Day-Old Goats Using 16S rRNA Sequencing

The ability of rumen microorganisms to use fibrous plant matter plays an important role in ruminant animals; however, little information about rumen colonization by microbial populations after weaning has been reported. In this study, high-throughput sequencing was used to investigate the establishment of this microbial population in 80 to 110-day-old goats. Illumina sequencing of goat rumen samples yielded 101,356,610 nucleotides that were assembled into 256,868 reads with an average read length of 394 nucleotides. Taxonomic analysis of metagenomic reads indicated that the predominant phyla were distinct at different growth stages. The phyla Firmicutes and Synergistetes were predominant in samples taken from 80 to 100-day-old goats, but Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes became the most abundant phyla in samples from 110-day-old animals. There was a remarkable variation in the microbial populations with age; Firmicutes and Synergistetes decreased after weaning, but Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria increased from 80 to 110 day of age. These findings suggested that colonization of the rumen by microorganisms is related to their function in the rumen digestive system. These results give a better understanding of the role of rumen microbes and the establishment of the microbial population, which help to maintain the host’s health and improve animal performance.