Environmental Genome Shotgun Sequencing of Marine Viroplankton

海洋病毒是地球上数量最多、种类最多、遗传特征最少的生物实体。通过感染、复制和宿主细胞裂解的循环，病毒影响宿主生物（主要是细菌）的生物多样性和进化以及整个海洋环境的功能所涉及的多种途径和过程。宏基因组学方法，或那些有助于分析来自整个环境群落的基因组物质的方法，将用于调查来自两个表层海水样本（来自佛罗里达州的干托尔图加斯和缅因湾）和一个来自切萨皮克湾的缺氧河口样本的病毒和细菌宿主种群的多样性。此外，病毒和细菌群落DNA的测序将用于确定病毒是否对完全测序的原绿球藻和SAR11培养菌株及其各自的环境亲缘菌之间观察到的明显基因组差异负责。原绿球藻是一种光合微生物，而SAR11是一组具有光收集能力的溶解有机碳利用微生物，它们在海洋表层水中数量惊人，在必需营养物质的循环中起着重要作用。对这些生物和感染它们的病毒进行高通量测序，将有助于了解自然存在的海洋微生物遗传变异的起源。该项目产生的序列数据将通过存入公共数据库向科学界提供，并将目前病毒宏基因组数据的规模扩大100倍。来自华盛顿特区公立学校的中学生和教师将直接参与该项目，并通过DISCOVER GENOMICS！Craig Venter研究所的外展项目此外，教师研究员将在资助的暑期实习期间延长他们的培训，旨在将海洋微生物生态学的世界带入课堂。

Marine viruses are the most numerous, most diverse and the least genetically characterized biological entities on Earth. Through cycles of infection, replication and host cell lysis, viruses impact multiple pathways and processes involved in the biodiversity and evolution of host organisms, primarily bacteria, and the functioning of marine environments as a whole. Metagenomic approaches, or those that facilitate the analysis of genomic material from whole environmental communities, will be used to investigate the diversity of viral and bacterial host populations from two surface marine water samples (collected from the Dry Tortugas, Florida and the Gulf of Maine) and one poorly oxygenated estuarine sample from the Chesapeake Bay. Additionally, sequencing of viral and bacterial community DNA will be used to determine if viruses are responsible for the apparent genomic differences observed between the fully sequenced cultured strains of Prochlorococcus and SAR11 and their respective environmental relatives. Prochlorococcus, a photosynthetic microbe, and SAR11, a group of dissolved organic carbon-utilizing microbes with light-harvesting capabilities, are incredibly abundant in marine surface waters and play important roles in the cycling of essential nutrients. High-throughput sequencing of these organisms and the viruses that infect them will shed light on the origins of genetic variation in naturally occurring marine microorganisms.The sequence data resulting from this project will be made available to the scientific community through deposition into public databases and will expand the current size of viral metagenomic data 100-fold. Middle-school students and teachers from Washington D.C. public schools will participate directly in the project and be introduced to genomic approaches through the DISCOVER GENOMICS! outreach program at the J. Craig Venter Institute. Futhermore, teacher fellows will extend their training during a funded summer internship designed to bring the world of marine microbial ecology to the classroom.