bitBiome has developed SMAGLinker, a framework for integrated data analysis of metagenomics and single cell metagenomics in collaboration with Professor Haruko Takeyama from Waseda University. The research results were published on Tuesday, October 12, 2021 in Microbiome, a journal published by BioMed Central, a Springer Nature group company.
The microbial inhabitants of the human body, collectively known as the “human microbiome”, play an integral role in maintaining the health of the body. These microbes often reside in harmony, while also aiding normal physiological processes. However, any imbalance in their populations can trigger various pathological conditions. Understanding these host-microbe relationships in health and disease is therefore crucial.
Using SMAGLinker, the researchers could construct a large number of high-quality genomes from the gut and skin microbiota. Moreover, genomes obtained using this integrated approach spanned a larger number of bacterial genera compared to the conventional approach, indicating better coverage of bacterial diversity.
In summary, SMAGLinker is a powerful tool that can improve the accuracy and quality of genome recovery and resolution of closely related genomes in complex microbial mixtures. The authors are excited about the potential ramifications of their findings. “Human commensal bacteria are deeply related to human health and understanding host-microbe interactions is important for designing novel medical treatments as well as for industrial and environmental applications. We are hopeful that this technology can be extended across diverse research disciplines for accurate microbial characterization,” concludes Hosokawa.
bitBiome could provide SMAGLinker bioinformatics analysis together with bit-MAP analysis service.
Please feel free to contact info@bitbiome.co.jp anytime.
＜Paper information＞
Title of original paper: Recovery of strain-resolved genomes from human microbiome through an integration framework of single-cell genomics and metagenomics
Journal: Microbiome
Main Author: Koji Arikawa, and Masahito Hosokawa
Latest Article Publication Date: October 12, 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-021-01152-4
＜Press release from Waseda University＞
New Technique Combines Single-Cell and Metagenomic Analyses to Characterize Microbes