TY - JOUR T1 - Integration of absolute multi-omics reveals translational and metabolic interplay in mixed-kingdom microbiomes JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/857599 SP - 857599 AU - F. Delogu AU - B.J. Kunath AU - M.Ø. Arntzen AU - T.R. Hvidsten AU - P.B. Pope Y1 - 2019/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/11/29/857599.abstract N2 - Microbiology is founded on well-known model organisms. For example, the majority of our fundamental knowledge regarding the quantitative levels of DNA, RNA, and protein backdates to keystone pure culture-based studies. Nowadays, meta-omic approaches allow us to directly access the molecules that constitute microbes and microbial communities, however due to a lack of absolute measurements, many original culture-derived “microbiology statutes” have not been updated or adapted to more complex microbiome settings. Within a cellulose-degrading and methanogenic consortium, we temporally measured genome-centric absolute RNA and protein levels per gene, and obtained a protein-to-RNA ratio of 102-104 for bacterial populations, whereas Archaeal RNA/protein dynamics (103-105: Methanothermobacter thermoautotrophicus) were more comparable to Eukaryotic representatives humans and yeast. The linearity between transcriptome and proteome had a population-specific change over time, highlighting a minimal subset of four functional carriers (cellulose degrader, fermenter, syntrophic acetate-oxidizer and methanogen) that coordinated their respective metabolisms, cumulating in the overarching community phenotype of converting polysaccharides to methane. Our findings show that upgrading multi-omic toolkits with traditional absolute measurements unlocks the scaling of core biological questions to dynamic and complex microbiomes, creating a deeper insight into inter-organismal relationships that drive the greater community function. ER -