A genomic catalog of Earth’s microbiomes

Stephen Nayfach, Simon Roux, Rekha Seshadri, Daniel Udwary, Neha Varghese, Frederik Schulz, Dongying Wu, David Paez-espino, I-min Chen, Marcel Huntemann, Krishna Palaniappan, Joshua Ladau, Supratim Mukherjee, T. B. K. Reddy, Torben Nielsen, Edward Kirton, José P. Faria, Janaka N. Edirisinghe, Christopher S. Henry, Sean P. JungbluthDylan Chivian, Paramvir Dehal, Elisha M. Wood-charlson, Adam P. Arkin, Susannah G. Tringe, Axel Visel, Tanja Woyke, Nigel J. Mouncey, Natalia N. Ivanova, Nikos C. Kyrpides, Emiley A. Eloe-fadrosh, Claire Gachon, Yacine Badis

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Abstract

The reconstruction of bacterial and archaeal genomes from shotgun metagenomes has enabled insights into the ecology and evolution of environmental and host-associated microbiomes. Here we applied this approach to >10,000 metagenomes collected from diverse habitats covering all of Earth’s continents and oceans, including metagenomes from human and animal hosts, engineered environments, and natural and agricultural soils, to capture extant microbial, metabolic and functional potential. This comprehensive catalog includes 52,515 metagenome-assembled genomes representing 12,556 novel candidate species-level operational taxonomic units spanning 135 phyla. The catalog expands the known phylogenetic diversity of bacteria and archaea by 44% and is broadly available for streamlined comparative analyses, interactive exploration, metabolic modeling and bulk download. We demonstrate the utility of this collection for understanding secondary-metabolite biosynthetic potential and for resolving thousands of new host linkages to uncultivated viruses. This resource underscores the value of genome-centric approaches for revealing genomic properties of uncultivated microorganisms that affect ecosystem processes.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages16
JournalNature Biotechnology
Volume2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 9 Nov 2020

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