RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Meta3C analysis of a mouse gut microbiome JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 034793 DO 10.1101/034793 A1 Martial Marbouty A1 Lyam Baudry A1 Axel Cournac A1 Romain Koszul YR 2015 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/12/17/034793.abstract AB Microbial populations as well as they biochemical activities are important components of environmental ecosystems, including the human microbiome. Deciphering the genomic content of these complex mixes of species is an important challenge but is essential to fully understand the regulation of their ecological balance. Here we apply meta3C, an experimental and computational approach that exploits the physical contacts between chromosomes to characterize large genomic regions of bacterial species mixed together, on a truly complex ecosystem: the mouse gut microbiota. Meta3C, which was initially described and applied onto controlled mixes of microorganisms, allowed the de novo assembly and scaffolding of numerous bacteria present into this natural mix. Importantly, the scaffolds analyzed exhibit the structural properties expected from typical bacterial chromosomes. Meta3C therefore paves the way to the in-depth analysis of genomic structuration of complex populations.