Product updation

The gut microbiota refers to all the microorganisms (microbes) living in a person’s gut. More and more research is showing that gut microbiota impacts the host’s health and well-being. Commonly the gut microbiota composition is characterized using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing, which indicates what types of bacteria are present, but misses all other types of microbes such as fungi, viruses and protists that are also present in the gut environment. These other microorganisms also play critical roles in affecting their host health. An alternative to 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing is shotgun metagenomics which can identify the various types of microbes present in the gut environment. However, bioinformatic pipelines to analyze shotgun metagenomics are complex and have several parameters that need to be adjusted to maximize the number of correctly identified microbes present in a given gut environment. Having a suitable bioinformatics pipeline is crucial for finding reliable associations between the gut microbiota composition and health conditions. In this project, we will develop and optimize a bioinformatic pipeline for shotgun metagenomics, and assess its feasibility to be part of a potential new commercial kit for profiling the gut microbiota.

Faculty Supervisor:

Lourdes Peña-Castillo

Student:

Partner:

Nucliq Biologics Inc.

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Program: