Category: Lab Notes: Microbiology

Metagenomic gene prediction identifies potential protein-coding genes and genomic features within metagenomic sequences and reconstructed microbial genomes. Learn how gene prediction works, how gene catalogs are created, major methods, challenges, and applications in functional metagenomics.

Metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) are genome reconstructions obtained directly from metagenomic sequencing data. Learn how MAGs are recovered through assembly and binning, how genome quality is assessed, and how MAGs are used in microbial genomics and genome-resolved metagenomics.

Metagenomic binning is a key step in genome-resolved metagenomics that groups assembled contigs into genome-like collections. Learn how binning works, the signals and algorithms used, genome quality assessment, MAG recovery, applications, and major challenges.

Metagenomic assembly reconstructs longer DNA sequences from microbial community sequencing reads. Learn about contigs, k-mers, de Bruijn graphs, short- and long-read assembly, assembly quality, co-assembly, polishing, and genome reconstruction.

Metagenomic functional profiling reveals the genes, metabolic pathways, and biological capabilities encoded within microbial communities. Learn about gene prediction, functional annotation, pathway analysis, abundance estimation, antimicrobial resistance, genome-resolved analysis, applications, and limitations.

Metagenomic taxonomic profiling identifies microorganisms in sequencing data and estimates their abundance. Learn about taxonomic classification, reference databases, species identification, microbial diversity, contamination, and applications of metagenomic profiling.

Metagenomic quality control is essential for producing reliable sequencing data for downstream analysis. Learn how raw FASTQ reads are assessed, filtered, trimmed, and checked for contamination, host DNA, sequencing artifacts, and other quality issues before taxonomic, functional, and genomic analysis.

Metagenomic library preparation converts extracted microbial DNA into sequencing-ready libraries. Learn about DNA fragmentation, adapter ligation, indexing, amplification, library quantification, pooling, quality control, and preparation methods for short- and long-read sequencing.

Binary fission is a rapid and efficient form of asexual reproduction in prokaryotes. It involves DNA replication, chromosome segregation, and septum formation, resulting in two identical daughter cells.