Understanding community composition of Asgard archaea through analysis of anaerobic cultures, microscopy, and genomic data
Abstract
The archaea superphylum Asgard is comprised of a group of uncultivated microorganisms previously suggested to possess homologous genes with eukaryotes. These genes are thought to shed light into the origins of eukaryotic cellular complexity. The majority of research on Asgard archaea is comprised of environmental metagenomic data, however, cultivation and visualization efforts for archaea within this superphylum have proven to be difficult. Further examination of Asgard archaea will provide a deeper understanding of the superphylum and its relation to eukaryotic evolution. In order to attempt to enrich for Asgard archaea, marine sediment samples were taken from a site in Newport, Oregon where preliminary data showed a high relative abundance of Asgarda archaea. Sediment samples from this site were used in anaerobic culturing with minimal media enriched with various amendments. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with visualization through Epifluorescence was used to monitor growth of microorganisms. MinION DNA sequencing was also used to track the composition of the community at different time points to determine if the enrichment was successful in encouraging the growth of Asgard archaea and how their dynamics shift with bacterial enrichment.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMED23G1087M
- Keywords:
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- 0810 Post-secondary education;
- EDUCATION;
- 0850 Geoscience education research;
- EDUCATION;
- 0855 Diversity;
- EDUCATION