PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Yuhong Sun
AU  - Xiang Li
AU  - Qing Yang
AU  - Bixi Zhao
AU  - Ziqi Wu
AU  - Yu Xia
TI  - Genome Enrichment of Rare, Unknown Species from Complicated Microbiome by Nanopore Selective Sequencing
AID  - 10.1101/2022.02.13.480078
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.02.13.480078
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/02/14/2022.02.13.480078.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/02/14/2022.02.13.480078.full
AB  - Rare species are vital members of a microbial community, but retrieving their genomes is difficult due to their low abundance. The ReadUntil (RU) approach allows nanopore devices to sequence specific DNA molecules selectively in real-time, which provides an opportunity for enriching rare species. However, there is still a gap in RU-based enriching of rare and unknown species in environmental samples whose community composition is unclear, and many species lack corresponding reference in public databases. Here we present metaRUpore to overcome this challenge. We applied metaRUpore to a thermophilic anaerobic digester (TAD) community, it successfully redirected the sequencing throughput from high-abundance populations to rare species while facilitating the recovery of 41 high-quality metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) at low sequencing effort. The simplicity and robustness of the approach make it accessible for labs with moderate computational resources and hold the potential to become the standard practice in future metagenomic sequencing of complicated microbiomes.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.