Microbial abundance, activity and population genomic profiling with mOTUs2

Metagenomic sequencing has greatly improved our ability to profile the composition of environmental and host-associated microbial communities. However, the dependency of most methods on reference genomes, which are currently unavailable for a substantial fraction of microbial species, introduces estimation biases. We present an updated and functionally extended tool based on universal (i.e., reference-independent), phylogenetic marker gene (MG)-based operational taxonomic units (mOTUs) enabling the profiling of >7700 microbial species. As more than 30% of them could not previously be quantified at this taxonomic resolution, relative abundance estimates based on mOTUs are more accurate compared to other…

• EM
  European Molecular Biology Organization

  Awards: GA-2013-609409, ALTF 721-2015, LTFCOFUND2013
• NF
  Novartis Foundation

  Awards: LTFCOFUND2013, GA-2013-609409
• BF
  Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

  Award: 031A537B
• ET
  Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich

  Award: PHRT-521
• NS
  Novartis Stiftung für Medizinisch-Biologische Forschung
• HH
  Helmut Horten Stiftung
• GN
  German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure

  Award: 031A537B