Impact of sequencing depth on the characterization of the microbiome and resistome.
Rahat ZaheerNoelle NoyesRodrigo Ortega PoloShaun R CookEric MarinierGary Van DomselaarKeith E BelkPaul S MorleyTim A McAllisterPublished in: Scientific reports (2018)
Developments in high-throughput next generation sequencing (NGS) technology have rapidly advanced the understanding of overall microbial ecology as well as occurrence and diversity of specific genes within diverse environments. In the present study, we compared the ability of varying sequencing depths to generate meaningful information about the taxonomic structure and prevalence of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) in the bovine fecal microbial community. Metagenomic sequencing was conducted on eight composite fecal samples originating from four beef cattle feedlots. Metagenomic DNA was sequenced to various depths, D1, D0.5 and D0.25, with average sample read counts of 117, 59 and 26 million, respectively. A comparative analysis of the relative abundance of reads aligning to different phyla and antimicrobial classes indicated that the relative proportions of read assignments remained fairly constant regardless of depth. However, the number of reads being assigned to ARGs as well as to microbial taxa increased significantly with increasing depth. We found a depth of D0.5 was suitable to describe the microbiome and resistome of cattle fecal samples. This study helps define a balance between cost and required sequencing depth to acquire meaningful results.
Keyphrases
- microbial community
- antibiotic resistance genes
- single cell
- optical coherence tomography
- antimicrobial resistance
- high throughput
- wastewater treatment
- single molecule
- genome wide
- healthcare
- risk assessment
- circulating tumor
- risk factors
- anaerobic digestion
- health information
- social media
- cell free
- genome wide analysis