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Title: FY08 LDRD Final Report Probabilistic Inference of Metabolic Pathways from Metagenomic Sequence Data

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/948980· OSTI ID:948980

Metagenomic 'shotgun' sequencing of environmental microbial communities has the potential to revolutionize microbial ecology, allowing a cultivation-independent, yet sequence-based analysis of the metabolic capabilities and functions present in an environmental sample. Although its intensive sequencing requirements are a good match for the continuously increasing bandwidth at sequencing centers, the complexity, seemingly inexhaustible novelty, and 'scrambled' nature of metagenomic data is also proving a tremendous challenge for analysis. In fact, many metagenomics projects do not go much further than providing a list of novel gene variants and over- or under-represented functional gene categories. In this project, we proposed to develop a set of novel metagenomic sequence analysis tools, including a binning method to group sequences by species, inference of phenotypes and metabolic pathways from these reconstructed species, and extraction of coarse-grained flux models. We proposed to closely collaborate with the DOE Joint Genome Institute to align these tools with their metagenomics analysis needs and the developing IMG/M metagenomics pipeline. Results would be cross-validated with simulated metagenomic data using a testing platform developed at the JGI.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
948980
Report Number(s):
LLNL-TR-410988; TRN: US200909%%378
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English