Dataset Information

Incorporating 16S gene copy number information improves estimates of microbial diversity and abundance.

ABSTRACT: The abundance of different SSU rRNA ("16S") gene sequences in environmental samples is widely used in studies of microbial ecology as a measure of microbial community structure and diversity. However, the genomic copy number of the 16S gene varies greatly - from one in many species to up to 15 in some bacteria and to hundreds in some microbial eukaryotes. As a result of this variation the relative abundance of 16S genes in environmental samples can be attributed both to variation in the relative abundance of different organisms, and to variation in genomic 16S copy number among those organisms. Despite this fact, many studies assume that the abundance of 16S gene sequences is a surrogate measure of the relative abundance of the organisms containing those sequences. Here we present a method that uses data on sequences and genomic copy number of 16S genes along with phylogenetic placement and ancestral state estimation to estimate organismal abundances from environmental DNA sequence data. We use theory and simulations to demonstrate that 16S genomic copy number can be accurately estimated from the short reads typically obtained from high-throughput environmental sequencing of the 16S gene, and that organismal abundances in microbial communities are more strongly correlated with estimated abundances obtained from our method than with gene abundances. We re-analyze several published empirical data sets and demonstrate that the use of gene abundance versus estimated organismal abundance can lead to different inferences about community diversity and structure and the identity of the dominant taxa in microbial communities. Our approach will allow microbial ecologists to make more accurate inferences about microbial diversity and abundance based on 16S sequence data.

SUBMITTER: Kembel SW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3486904 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Incorporating 16S gene copy number information improves estimates of microbial diversity and abundance.

Kembel Steven W SW Wu Martin M Eisen Jonathan A JA Green Jessica L JL

PLoS computational biology 20121025 10

The abundance of different SSU rRNA ("16S") gene sequences in environmental samples is widely used in studies of microbial ecology as a measure of microbial community structure and diversity. However, the genomic copy number of the 16S gene varies greatly - from one in many species to up to 15 in some bacteria and to hundreds in some microbial eukaryotes. As a result of this variation the relative abundance of 16S genes in environmental samples can be attributed both to variation in the relative ...[more]

PMID: 23133348

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Project description:Illumina Infinium whole genome genotyping (WGG) arrays are increasingly being applied in cancer genomics to study gene copy number alterations and allele-specific aberrations such as loss-of-heterozygosity (LOH). Methods developed for normalization of WGG arrays have mostly focused on diploid, normal samples. However, for cancer samples genomic aberrations may confound normalization and data interpretation. Therefore, we examined the effects of the conventionally used normalization method for Illumina Infinium arrays when applied to cancer samples. We demonstrate an asymmetry in the detection of the two alleles for each SNP, which deleteriously influences both allelic proportions and copy number estimates. The asymmetry is caused by a remaining bias between the two dyes used in the Infinium II assay after using the normalization method in Illumina’s proprietary software (BeadStudio). We propose a quantile normalization strategy for correction of this dye bias. We tested the normalization strategy using 535 individual hybridizations from 10 data sets from the analysis of cancer genomes and normal blood samples generated on Illumina Infinium II 300k version 1 and 2, 370k and 550k BeadChips. We show that the proposed normalization strategy successfully removes asymmetry in estimates of both allelic proportions and copy numbers. Additionally, the normalization strategy reduces the technical variation for copy number estimates while retaining the response to copy number alterations. The proposed normalization strategy represents a valuable low-level analysis tool that improves the quality of data obtained from Illumina Infinium arrays, in particular when used for LOH and copy number variation studies. To investigate the effects of a quantile normalization of Illumina Infinium data, compared to conventional normalization using BeadStudio (www.illumina.com), we renormalized 535 individual hybridizations conducted on Illumina 300K, 370K and 550K BeadChips. Sample types included breast cancer, colon cancer, urothelial carcinoma, leukemia as well as normal blood and HapMap samples. This series includes the 6 breast cancers hybridized on Illumina HumanHap 550K BeadChips.

Dataset Information

Incorporating 16S gene copy number information improves estimates of microbial diversity and abundance.

Publications

Incorporating 16S gene copy number information improves estimates of microbial diversity and abundance.

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