Microbiology

Most bacterial genomes have biased nucleotide composition, and the asymmetry is considered to be caused by a single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) deamination arising from the bacterial replication machinery. In order to evaluate the relationship experimentally, the position and frequency of ssDNA formed during replication must be verified clearly. Although many ssDNA detection technologies exist, almost all methods have been developed for eukaryotic genomes. To apply these to bacterial genomes, which harbor a smaller amount of DNA than those of eukaryotes, more efficient, new methods are required. Therefore, we developed a novel strand-specific ssDNA sequencing method, called 4S-seq, for the bacterial genome. The 4S-seq method enriches ssDNA in the extracted genomic DNA by a dsDNA-specific nuclease and implements a strand-specific library using a biotin label with a customized tag. As a result, the 4S-seq is able to calculate the ssDNA content in each strand (Watson/Crick) at each position of the genome efficiently.

Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for all living organisms. In cyanobacteria, a group of oxygenic photosynthetic bacteria, nitrogen homeostasis is maintained by an intricate regulatory network around the transcription factor NtcA. Although mechanisms controlling NtcA activity appear to be well understood, the sets of genes under its control (i.e., its regulon) remain poorly defined. In this protocol, we describe the procedure for chromatin immunoprecipitation using NtcA antibodies, followed by DNA sequencing analysis (ChIP-seq) during early acclimation to nitrogen starvation in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 (hereafter Synechocystis). This protocol can be extended to analyze any DNA-binding protein in cyanobacteria for which suitable antibodies exist.

The current study provides detailed protocols utilized to amplify the complete HIV-1 gp120 and nef genes from single copies of expressed or integrated HIV present in fresh-frozen autopsy tissues of patients who died while on combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) with no detectable plasma viral load (pVL) at death (Lamers et al., 2016a and 2016b; Rose et al., 2016). This method optimizes protocols from previous publications (Palmer et al., 2005; Norström et al., 2012; Lamers et al., 2015; 2016a and 2016b; Rife et al., 2016) to produce single distinct PCR products that can be directly sequenced and includes several cost-saving and time-efficient modifications.

Herein we describe a detailed protocol for DNA virome analysis of low input human stool samples (Monaco et al., 2016). This protocol is divided into four main steps: 1) stool samples are pulverized to evenly distribute microbial matter; 2) stool is enriched for virus-like particles and DNA is extracted by phenol-chloroform; 3) purified DNA is multiple-strand displacement amplified (MDA) and fragmented; and 4) libraries are constructed and sequenced using Illumina Miseq. Subsequent sequence analysis for viral sequence identification should be sensitive but stringent.

Sequencing taxonomic marker genes is a powerful tool to interrogate the composition of microbial communities. For example, bacterial and fungal community composition can be evaluated in parallel using the 16S ribosomal RNA gene for bacteria or the internal transcribed spacer region in fungi. These are conserved regions that are universal to a taxonomic clade, yet have undergone some degree of evolution such that different lineages can be differentiated. Conserved regions are used for design of universal priming sites that allow amplification of the marker gene out of a mixed microbial community. Here, we describe our standard operating procedure to collect and sequence 16S rRNA and ITS1 amplicons from human skin. We use the 16S rRNA V1-V3 region for skin samples, as it has greater power for classifying common staphylococci in the skin. This protocol is adapted for 454 pyrosequencing of amplicons.