The Marine Microbial Eukaryote Transcriptome Sequencing Project (MMETSP): Illuminating the Functional Diversity of Eukaryotic Life in the Oceans through Transcriptome Sequencing

Microbial ecology is plagued by problems of an abstract nature. Cell sizes are so small and population sizes so large that both are virtually incomprehensible. Niches are so far from our everyday experience as to make their very definition elusive. Organisms that may be abundant and critical to our survival are little understood, seldom described and/or cultured, and sometimes yet to be even seen. One way to confront these problems is to use data of an even more abstract nature: molecular sequence data. Massive environmental nucleic acid sequencing, such as metagenomics or metatranscriptomics, promises functional analysis of microbial communities as a whole, without prior knowledge of which organisms are in…

• GA
  Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
• UD
  Università di Macerata
• SR
  Sight Research UK

  Awards: pml010002, NE/J021296/1, NE/I001751/1
• CN
  Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
• UF
  Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
• NE
  Natural Environment Research Council

  Awards: NE/I001751/1, pml010002, NE/J021296/1