Novel Systems Biology Techniques
Special Issue Perspective | Novel Systems Biology TechniquesToward Personalized Control of Human Gut Bacterial CommunitiesA key challenge in microbiology will be developing tools for manipulating human gut bacterial communities. Our ability to predict and control the dynamics of these communities is now in its infancy.
Editor's Pick Research Article | Novel Systems Biology TechniquesGenome-Scale, Constraint-Based Modeling of Nitrogen Oxide Fluxes during Coculture of Nitrosomonas europaea and Nitrobacter winogradskyiModern agriculture is sustained by application of inorganic nitrogen (N) fertilizer in the form of ammonium (NH4+). Up to 60% of NH4+-based fertilizer can be lost through leaching of nitrifier-derived nitrate (NO3−), and through the emission of N oxide gases (i.e., nitric oxide [NO], N dioxide [NO2], and nitrous oxide [N2O] gases), the latter being a...
Research Article | Novel Systems Biology TechniquesKatharoSeq Enables High-Throughput Microbiome Analysis from Low-Biomass SamplesVarious indoor, outdoor, and host-associated environments contain small quantities of microbial biomass and represent a niche that is often understudied because of technical constraints. Many studies that attempt to evaluate these low-biomass microbiome samples are riddled with erroneous results that are typically false positive signals obtained during the sampling process. We have investigated various low-biomass kits and methods to...
Special Issue Perspective | Novel Systems Biology TechniquesOn the Road to Strain-Resolved Comparative MetagenomicsMetagenomics has transformed microbiology, but its potential has not been fully expressed yet. From computational methods for digging deeper into metagenomes to study designs for addressing specific hypotheses, the Segata Lab is pursuing an integrative metagenomic approach to describe and model human-associated microbial communities as collections of strains.
Special Issue Perspective | Novel Systems Biology TechniquesComputational Genomics of Specialized Metabolism: from Natural Product Discovery to Microbiome EcologyMicrobial and plant specialized metabolites, also known as natural products, are key mediators of microbe-microbe and host-microbe interactions and constitute a rich resource for drug development. In the past decade, genome mining has emerged as a prominent strategy for natural product discovery.
Research Article | Novel Systems Biology TechniquesMagic Pools: Parallel Assessment of Transposon Delivery Vectors in BacteriaMolecular genetics is indispensable for interrogating the physiology of bacteria. However, the development of a functional genetic system for any given bacterium can be time-consuming. Here, we present a streamlined approach for identifying an effective transposon mutagenesis system for a new bacterium. Our strategy first involves the construction of hundreds of different transposon vector variants, which we term a “magic pool.” The...
Editor's Pick Minireview | Novel Systems Biology TechniquesOn the Power of Uncertainties in Microbial System Modeling: No Need To Hide Them AnymoreFor decades, microbiologists have considered uncertainties as an undesired side effect of experimental protocols. As a consequence, standard microbial system modeling strives to hide uncertainties for the sake of deterministic understanding.
Research Article | Novel Systems Biology TechniquesDiscrete False-Discovery Rate Improves Identification of Differentially Abundant MicrobesDS-FDR can achieve higher statistical power to detect significant findings in sparse and noisy microbiome data compared to the commonly used Benjamini-Hochberg procedure and other FDR-controlling procedures.
Methods and Protocols | Novel Systems Biology TechniquesDirect PCR Offers a Fast and Reliable Alternative to Conventional DNA Isolation Methods for Gut MicrobiomesThe microbial communities of animals can have large impacts on their hosts, and the number of studies using high-throughput sequencing to measure gut microbiomes is rapidly increasing. However, the library preparation procedure in microbiome research is both costly and time-consuming, especially for large numbers of samples. We investigated a cheaper and faster direct PCR method designed to bypass the DNA isolation steps during 16S rRNA...
Editor's Pick Methods and Protocols | Novel Systems Biology TechniquesA Synthetic Community System for Probing Microbial Interactions Driven by ExometabolitesUnderstanding microbial interactions is a fundamental objective in microbiology and ecology. The synthetic community system described here can set into motion a range of research to investigate how the diversity of a microbiome and interactions among its members impact its function, where function can be measured as exometabolites. The system allows for community exometabolite profiling to be coupled with genome mining, transcript...