Marine Microbiology Initiative - Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Bathymodiolus mussels are among the most abundant animals at hydrothermal vents and cold seeps worldwide. They can form vast and dense communities in these habitats because symbiotic bacteria provide them with a source of nutrition. We are currently sequencing the genomes of these chemosynthetic symbionts from diverse Bathymodiolus species from hydrothermal vents and cold seeps around the world. The goals of this project are i) to gain a better understanding of metabolic pathways for energy and carbon acquisition, as well as for the uptake and use of nutrients in chemosynthetic symbionts, and ii) identify common metabolic pathways in chemosynthetic symbionts and their closest free-living relatives, and (iii) to identify metabolic pathways that are specific to some symbiont strains.

The status of our large-scale metagenome sequencing project can be seen in the table below. For some species we also have corresponding transcriptome or proteome data.

The following data have been published in the following studies:

This table lists sequencing data that we are in the process of analyzing and are therefore not yet included in any published study. Several draft genomes were uploaded to and can be accessed via the Integrated Microbial Genomes (IMG) database of the DOE Joint Genome Institute (http://img.jgi.doe.gov/); a list with the corresponding project IDs has also been uploaded to Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/record/160958#.WAJmvjL5yCY and https://zenodo.org/record/999554#.Wc6Pktxx2po). The remaining draft genomes are in the process of submission to NCBI. If you are interested in these datasets, please let us know.

Gutless oligochaetes were found to associate with a wide variety of beneficial, microbial symbionts. We are using multi-'omic' approaches to reveal the functions of the different symbionts in the symbiosis and to identify how the association with symbionts from different phylogenetic clades may have shaped the evolution of the hosts. 

The sequencing data we obtained is in the process of analyzing and therefore not yet included in any published study. Several draft genomes were uploaded to an can be accessed via the Integrated Microbial Genomes (IMG) database of the DOE Joint Genome Institute (http://img.jgi.doe.gov/); a list with the corresponding project IDs has also been uploaded to Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/record/998566#.Wc6Nz9xx2po).The remaining draft genomes are in the process of submission to NCBI. If you are interested in these datasets, please let us know. 

We uploaded MS-imaging datasets from different animals (Bathymodiolus spp., Kentrophoros sp., Lumbricus terrestris, Olavius algarvensis, Paracatenula sp.) and plants (Posidonia oceanica) to the open access servers Metaspace (http://annotate.metaspace2020.eu/#/datasets) and Proteome Exchange (http://Proteomexchange.org/). A list with the corresponding project IDs and metadata of the samples has been uploaded to Zenodo

2016:

(https://zenodo.org/record/160973#.WAJoKzL5yCY).

2017:

(https://zenodo.org/record/998574#.Wc6NQdxx2po)

Link to files: