Seminar of the Department of Microbiology

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Functional Marker-Based Analyses of Potential Acetogenic Communities: Advantages, Application and Limitations

Abhijeet Singh - Postdoctoral Researcher, Microbial Biotechnology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

17.11.2022, 11:00 - Join online

Abstract

Acetogenic communities are very diverse group of bacteria which are functionally involved in different biological processes in different environments. There have been several studies dealing with acetogenic communities and their importance in different environmental and industrial processes. Since acetogenesis is a functional processes, analysis of acetogenic community based on taxonomic molecular markers do not completely fulfil the requirement to be used as a target molecular marker for this community. Thus, the functional gene formyltetrahydofolate synthetase (FTHFS) is alternatively used as a molecular marker to target acetogenic communities. Members of acetogenic community can also be involved in different processes like syntrophic acid oxidation, acidogenesis etc., thus, this community can collectively be called as FTHFS harbouring bacterial community. Furthermore, despite the importance of this FTHFS community, any high- throughput study for this functional group was not possible until recently. The development of FTHFS database and dedicated NGS-analysis pipeline facilitated study of FTHFS encompassing communities in anaerobic digestion environment. This seminar would deal with some advantages, disadvantages of using FTHFS as a molecular marker and methodology for generating and analyses of FTHFS-amplicon sequencing data with some practical examples.