A case for absolute gene expression estimates in microbiome studies using metatranscriptomics

2025/01/01 by Michiel Perneel, Harriet Alexander, Pascal I. Hablützel +1 · 2 voices
Environmental Science · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology #Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies #Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies

paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/ismejo/wraf188

Abstract

Metatranscriptomics is widely used to study the functional dynamics of microbial communities in their natural environment [1][2][3][4][5][6].Changes in gene expression in microbial communities can be subdivided in two main categories: per capita changes at the cellular or organismal scale in response to developmental cues and environmental signals, and changes mediated by population dynamics and taxonomic shifts.In this perspective, we

Discussions

• The ISME Early Career Scientist Committee is glad to spotlight @michielperneel.bsky.social, PhD student at VIB-Ugent Center for PSB & Flanders Marine Inst., and his paper "A case for absolute gene exp [bsky, 8 points, 2 comments]
• How can absolute expression estimates better reflect microbial abundance and activity across space and time? We found out the hard way that relative gene expression measures can be misleading in metat [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]

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