Cells can be highly motile, moving in and out of a microscope’s field of view. Understanding complex life cycles is difficult without continuous observation. To overcome this challenge, we’ve developed a 3D-printed microchamber device to confine cells for long-term visualization.
The process of deciding whether a candidate actin homolog represents a “true” actin is tricky. We propose clear and data-driven criteria to define actin that highlight the functional importance of this protein while accounting for phylogenetic diversity.
Adair L. Borges, Atanas Radkov, and Peter S. Thuy-Boun
TR
+1
Published: Dec 19, 2022
This pub details a process for phage amplification and concentration, DNA extraction, and HPLC and MS analysis of phage nucleosides. We optimized the approach with model phages known to use non-canonical nucleosides in their DNA, but plan to apply it for other phages.
seqqc is a Nextflow pipeline for quality control of short- or long-read sequencing data. It quickly assesses the quality of sequencing data so that it can be posted to a public repository before analysis for biological insights. Faster open data, faster knowledge for everyone.
The sourmash Python package produces many outputs that describe the content and similarity of sequencing data. We developed a new R package, sourmashconsumr, that lets a wider range of users easily load, analyze, and visualize those outputs in R.
Feridun Mert Celebi, Elizabeth A. McDaniel, and Taylor Reiter
SC
+2
Published: Mar 07, 2023
A workflow orchestration framework can streamline repeatable tasks and make workflows broadly usable. From several options, we chose Nextflow due to the ease of deploying across platforms, vibrant nf-core community, and ability to manage and monitor workflows with Nextflow Tower.
Adair L. Borges, Rachel J. Dutton, Elizabeth A. McDaniel, Taylor Reiter, and Emily C.P. Weiss
RD
TR
Published: Mar 11, 2023
How do you approach getting a microbiome set up in a new lab? We’re sharing protocols for how we collected, stocked, and sequenced a set of cheese rind microbiomes and generated a high-quality metagenomics resource for future computational studies.
Januka Athukoralage, Adair L. Borges, and Taylor Reiter
TR
Published: Mar 14, 2023
We struggled to isolate enough phage mRNA for HPLC as we searched for new nucleoside chemistries. Ribodepleting the abundant extracted rRNA introduced contaminating DNA, and we were still left with more bacterial mRNA than phage transcripts. We suggest an alternative approach.
Seemay Chou, Kira E. Poskanzer, MaryClare Rollins, and Peter S. Thuy-Boun
SC
TD
BF
KP
TR
+2
Published: Mar 30, 2023
We generated a whole-genome assembly for the lone star tick to serve as a reference for downstream efforts where whole-genome maps are required. We created our assembly using pooled DNA from salivary glands of 50 adult female ticks that we sequenced using PacBio HiFi reads.
We want to swiftly generate genome assemblies and produce quality control statistics to gauge the need for more curation. We built a Nextflow pipeline that assembles Illumina, Nanopore, or PacBio sequencing reads for a single organism and runs QC checks on the resulting assembly.
Seeing how microbes are organized within a community can inspire hypotheses about how species interact with each other. We used HiPR-FISH spatial imaging to look at the distribution of microbes within five distinct microbial communities growing on the surface of aged cheeses.
We want to seamlessly process and summarize metagenomics data from Illumina or Nanopore technologies. We built a Nextflow workflow that handles common metagenomics tasks and produces useful outputs and intuitive visualizations.
Prachee Avasthi, Rachel J. Dutton, Taylor Reiter, and Emily C.P. Weiss
PA
RD
KP
TR
Published: Jul 20, 2023
We are interested in neuroactive metabolites that influence animal behavior. Some fungi have horizontally transferred neuroactive metabolite pathways between species. We used a horizontal gene transfer detection pipeline to screen for novel fungal genes tied to neuroactivity.
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the exchange of DNA between species. It can lead to the acquisition of new gene functions, so finding HGT events can reveal genome novelty. preHGT is a pipeline that uses multiple existing methods to quickly screen for transferred genes.
The increasingly large number of sequences available in public databases makes searches slower and slower. We clustered the NCBI non-redundant protein database and calculated taxonomic info for each cluster. This collapses similar sequences and reduces the database by over half.
Adair L. Borges, Rachel J. Dutton, Elizabeth A. McDaniel, Atanas Radkov, Taylor Reiter, and Emily C.P. Weiss
RD
+4
Published: Jul 19, 2023
We sampled cheese microbial communities to discover bacteriophages with unusual genome chemistries. We isolated 114 bacterial host strains and 17 phages, and identified one phage with a probable arabinose hypermodification of hydroxymethylcytosine.
Tara Essock-Burns, Galo Garcia III, Cameron Dale MacQuarrie, David G. Mets, and Ryan York
TE
DM
+4
Published: Jun 23, 2023
We’re crossing C. reinhardtii and C. smithii algae for high-throughput genotype-phenotype mapping. In preparation, we’re comparing the parents to uncover unique species-specific phenotypes.
Adair L. Borges, Feridun Mert Celebi, Kira E. Poskanzer, and Taylor Reiter
RD
KP
TR
Published: Aug 25, 2023
We implemented a lightweight method to identify viruses in 342 human brain bulk and single-cell sequencing data sets, and identified two glioblastoma cells from a single patient that contained deltapolyomavirus sequences.