synDNA—a Synthetic DNA Spike-in Method for Absolute Quantification of Shotgun Metagenomic Sequencing
Lívia S. Zaramela, Megan Tjuanta, Oriane Moyne, M J Neal, Karsten Zengler
Abstract
The synDNAs designed in this study enable accurate and reproducible measurements of absolute amount and fold changes of bacterial species in complex microbial communities. The method proposed here is versatile and promising as it can be applied to bacterial communities or genomic features like genes and operons, in addition to being easily adaptable by other research groups at a low cost. We also made the synDNAs' sequences and the plasmids available to encourage future application of the proposed method in the study of microbial communities.
Topics & Concepts
MetagenomicsShotgun sequencingShotgunMicrobiomeComputational biologyRelative species abundanceAbundance (ecology)BiologyDilutionDNA sequencingBiological systemDNAGeneticsGeneEcologyPhysicsThermodynamicsGenomics and Phylogenetic StudiesMicrobial Community Ecology and PhysiologyGut microbiota and health