Abstract
Metatranscriptomics has increased our working knowledge of the functional significance and genetic variability of microbial communities, yet there is still limited information concerning how gene expression and regulation in a microbiome influences interactions with hydrocarbon sources. Petroleum hydrocarbon environmental contamination provides a multitude of microenvironment interactions, which result in complex microbial community dynamics. While our understanding of microbial-mediated hydrocarbon metabolic potential is significantly improving, the transcriptional responses of key genotypic markers remain limited. The existence and persistence of microbial hydrocarbon metabolism can only be deciphered through the transcriptional regulation, characterized through metatranscriptomics. This technique is both fast, relatively cheap compared to proteomics and metabolomics, and provides a potential catalogue of interacting elements that can be used to define metabolic relationships between microbes. These metatranscriptomic analyses can also be coupled with metagenomic sequencing and statistical models to provide an in-depth approach to assemblage systems biology. In this work, we detail a standardized method to process and analyze hydrocarbon-associated microbial metatranscriptomes.
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Hampton-Marcell, J.T., Frazier, A., Moormann, S.M., Owens, S.M., Gilbert, J.A. (2014). Preparation and Analysis of Metatranscriptomic Libraries in Petroleum Hydrocarbon Microbe Systems. In: McGenity, T., Timmis, K., Nogales , B. (eds) Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology Protocols. Springer Protocols Handbooks. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/8623_2014_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/8623_2014_24
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