Software for high-precision analyses of microbial communities, active genes and the reconstruction of new genomes

Advances in genomics in recent years have led to the development of many new methods for detecting microbial communities and their genes in environmental samples. For this purpose, DNA or RNA is extracted from the samples in our laboratories, partially amplified, and then sequenced. Since our samples often contain very little DNA or RNA, both special laboratory methods and bioinformatic analysis must be very sensitive. The Geomicrobiology Section specializes in using and further developing the necessary software for precise analyses and in analyzing the samples and their communities. The analyses include:

· Amplicon/metabarcoding analyses based on the amplification of specific target genes. 

· Metagenome analyses including the analysis of all detected genes and gene functions

· Metatranscriptome

· Reconstruction of new genomes in high quality

Hardware and server

Specialized hardware is used to process large amounts of genomic data and to run specialized bioinformatic software. For example, metagenomic analysis of large amounts of data requires a lot of RAM. For our work, we have access to the GFZ's HPC (High Performance Computing) servers. In addition, our section operates its own server with extra RAM (3TB).