Microbiome profiling by illumina sequencing of combinatorial sequence-tagged PCR products

We developed a low-cost, high-throughput microbiome profiling method that uses combinatorial sequence tags attached to PCR primers that amplify the rRNA V6 region. Amplified PCR products are sequenced using an Illumina paired-end protocol to generate millions of overlapping reads. Combinatorial sequence tagging can be used to examine hundreds of samples with far fewer primers than is required when sequence tags are incorporated at only a single end. The number of reads generated permitted saturating or near-saturating analysis of samples of the vaginal microbiome. The large number of reads allowed an in-depth analysis of errors, and we found that PCR-induced errors composed the vast majority of non-organism derived species variants, an observation that has significant implications for sequence clustering of similar high-throughput data. We show that the short reads are sufficient to assign organisms to the genus or species level in most cases. We suggest that this method will be useful for the deep sequencing of any short nucleotide region that is taxonomically informative; these include the V3, V5 regions of the bacterial 16S rRNA genes and the eukaryotic V9 region that is gaining popularity for sampling protist diversity.     

Improving PacBio Long Read Accuracy by Short Read Alignment

The recent development of third generation sequencing (TGS) generates much longer reads than second generation sequencing (SGS) and thus provides a chance to solve problems that are difficult to study through SGS alone. However, higher raw read error rates are an intrinsic drawback in most TGS technologies. Here we present a computational method, LSC, to perform error correction of TGS long reads (LR) by SGS short reads (SR). Aiming to reduce the error rate in homopolymer runs in the main TGS platform, the PacBio® RS, LSC applies a homopolymer compression (HC) transformation strategy to increase the sensitivity of SR-LR alignment without scarifying alignment accuracy. We applied LSC to 100,000 PacBio long reads from human brain cerebellum RNA-seq data and 64 million single-end 75 bp reads from human brain RNA-seq data. The results show LSC can correct PacBio long reads to reduce the error rate by more than 3 folds. The improved accuracy greatly benefits many downstream analyses, such as directional gene isoform detection in RNA-seq study. Compared with another hybrid correction tool, LSC can achieve over double the sensitivity and similar specificity.     

六妹羊肚菌PacBio基因组测序和DNA 6mA甲基化分析

羊肚菌属于子囊门真菌,是世界范围内最受欢迎的食用菌之一。本研究通过PacBio单分子实时测序技术对我国四川省成功栽培的六妹羊肚菌Morchella sextelata SCLS菌株进行全基因组测序,获得其高质量核基因组组装,大小为53.57Mb,重复序列含量为17.03%,包含42条重叠群（contigs）,重叠群N50高达1.82Mb,其中13条重叠群两端均含有端粒重复序列,为完整的染色体。通过链特异性RNA-seq测序和转录本拼接,并结合多种基因预测策略,预测到13 182个蛋白编码基因,包括267个碳水化合物活性酶,11个次生代谢产物合成基因簇。通过与内蒙古地区栽培的六妹羊肚菌菌株NZTD180501373基因组比较发现,六妹羊肚菌进化过程中可能发生过染色体重组事件,二者具有33 055个SNP和48 726个InDel位点差异,并且各自拥有超过6Mb的特有序列。此外,相比于梯棱羊肚菌M. importuna,六妹羊肚菌SCLS菌株中与逆转录转座酶有关的orthogroup发生了扩张,并且拥有5个成员数超过100的特有逆转录转座酶基因家族。对SCLS菌株中的DNA N⁶腺嘌呤甲基化（6mA）修饰进行了鉴定,发现SCLS菌株基因组中0.42%的腺嘌呤被6mA甲基化,其含量显著高于已报道的6种双核亚界（Dikarya）真菌。6mA甲基化位点在逆转录转座子上显著富集,表明六妹羊肚菌中6mA甲基化可能调控逆转录转座子的活性,这也是首次在真菌中报道6mA甲基化与转座子相关。     

Direct sequencing of PCR products using the Maxam-Gilbert method

Direct sequencing of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products by using the Maxam-Gilbert method is described. In this method, one of the primers is end labeled. Thus it is possible to sequence the reaction product directly following purification using this chemical method.     

基于PacBio SMRT测序技术评估妊娠期糖尿病人的肠道菌群

[目的]肠道菌群是位于人体肠道内的微生物菌群,其组成与人类多种疾病相关。例如,已有研究表明肠道菌群的变化与妊娠期糖尿病（gestational diabetes mellitus,GDM）的发病密切相关。因此本研究基于PacBio SMRT测序技术评估及比较了不同民族（汉族和蒙古族）及是否患GDM的孕妇的肠道菌群。[方法]本研究利用PacBio SMRT测序技术对97例患有GDM及健康的汉族和蒙古族孕妇粪便样本进行了全长16S rRNA测序及分析。[结果]总体来说,处于相同孕期的4组孕妇肠道菌群的组成相似,不同核心菌群展现出不同强弱的相关性。本研究在种的水平上共鉴定到了44个种。在汉族人中,患有妊娠期糖尿病的孕妇肠道菌群中Akkermansia muciniphila菌的相对丰度要显著低于健康孕妇;而在蒙古族人中,健康孕妇与GDM孕妇间差异并不明显。在健康对照中发现汉族孕妇肠道菌群中Bacteroides uniformis菌的相对丰度显著高于蒙古族孕妇;但在患有GDM组中未找到不同民族分组间的差异。另外,功能预测结果发现四组样本菌群功能组成高度相似,大多数功能基因都与能量代谢有关。汉族GDM患者与健康对照组间没有发现显著差异,但在蒙古族GDM患者中发现无机离子运输等功能相对丰度显著高于与蒙古族正常孕妇。[结论]在相同的孕期,妊娠期孕妇的核心肠道菌群结构与功能是相对稳定的,而民族差异也不会对妊娠期菌群产生显著性影响。但在四组间可以检测到一些低丰度的差异菌群,如Akkermansia muciniphila,其丰度的变化可能导致了肠道中一些与肠道营养吸收等有关的代谢发生变化,而这些变化可能与妊娠期糖尿病的发生密切相关。本研究将有助于探究肠道菌群在GDM发病机制中的作用。     

Genomic sequencing by ligation-mediated PCR

Genomic sequencing permits studies of in vivo DNA methylation and protein-DNA interactions, but its use has been limited due to the complexity of the mammalian genome. Ligation-mediated PCR (LMPCR) is a sensitive genomic sequencing procedure that generates high quality, reproducible sequence ladders starting with only 1 μg of uncloned mammalian DNA per reaction. This genomic sequencing procedure can be adapted for various methylation, in vivo footprinting and DNA adduct mapping procedures. We provide a detailed protocol for genomic sequencing by LMPCR and discuss the principles and applications of the method.     

An efficient method for purification of PCR products for sequencing

A high-throughput DNA sequencing method that generated high quality data was developed. A frame fashioned from a standard agarose gel combined with 0.1%-0.2% low-melting point (LMP) agarose gel was used to isolate the PCR product of interest. Collected PCR products were centrifuged without any reagents and the supernatants were directly used for a sequencing reaction. This method is simple and labor efficient, provides high quality sequences at a low cost, and bypasses problems with impure PCR products. This technique has been used for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) discovery in Populus angustifolia trees.     

Sorghum genome sequencing by methylation filtration

Sorghum bicolor is a close relative of maize and is a staple crop in Africa and much of the developing world because of its superior tolerance of arid growth conditions. We have generated sequence from the hypomethylated portion of the sorghum genome by applying methylation filtration (MF) technology. The evidence suggests that 96% of the genes have been sequence tagged, with an average coverage of 65% across their length. Remarkably, this level of gene discovery was accomplished after generating a raw coverage of less than 300 megabases of the 735-megabase genome. MF preferentially captures exons and introns, promoters, microRNAs, and simple sequence repeats, and minimizes interspersed repeats, thus providing a robust view of the functional parts of the genome. The sorghum MF sequence set is beneficial to research on sorghum and is also a powerful resource for comparative genomics among the grasses and across the entire plant kingdom. Thousands of hypothetical gene predictions in rice and Arabidopsis are supported by the sorghum dataset, and genomic similarities highlight evolutionarily conserved regions that will lead to a better understanding of rice and Arabidopsis.