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UID:1077@biotech.technion.ac.il
DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Jerusalem:20220126T160000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Jerusalem:20220126T164900
DTSTAMP:20220512T124718Z
URL:https://biotech.technion.ac.il/events/plasmid-population-in-marine-env
 ironment-2/
SUMMARY:Plasmid Population in Marine Environment
DESCRIPTION:Plasmids are extrachromosomal DNA molecules\, typically circula
 r\, commonly found in bacteria and other unicellular organisms. Plasmids a
 re regularly used in molecular biology and biotechnology as cloning and ex
 pression vectors\, and are infamous as carriers and spreaders of antibioti
 c resistance genes. However\, they also play an important environmental ro
 le as major drivers of horizontal gene transfer\, providing a pool of func
 tional genes which can be transferred to different microorganisms and prov
 ide them with additional “superpowers”.\n\nOur knowledge about plasmid
 s comes mostly from several model plasmids which were extensively studied 
 and from hospital and agriculture-related isolates. In recent years\, with
  the increasing availability of metagenomic data\, there are more and more
  studies of overall plasmid populations (plasmidome) from different enviro
 nments\, such as soil\, wastewater\, bovine guts etc.\, but still very lit
 tle is known about marine plasmids. To date\, only ~1.4% of the plasmids d
 eposited in the NCBI nucleotide database are from marine origin. Moreover\
 , from the available studies about marine plasmids we learn that marine pl
 asmids are different from the known terrestrial plasmids. Therefore\, ther
 e is a large gap in our knowledge about plasmids from marine origin.\n\nIn
  my talk I will present our study of plasmids from the Red Sea. We develop
 ed a pipeline for plasmid detection from available metagenomic data\, and 
 used it to identify 362 plasmid candidates from 45 samples from the Red Se
 a. We characterized the candidates\, studied their genetic arsenal\, and i
 dentified correlations between the plasmid population and environmental pa
 rameters. From the 362 candidates\, only 1 is a known plasmid. 37 candidat
 es contain ORFs which are clearly plasmid-related (therefore defined as pr
 obably novel plasmids)\, and 90 candidates contain ORFs which may be plasm
 id-related (therefore defined as putative novel plasmids). Yet\, most of t
 he candidates are unknown\, containing ORFs with unknown function\, and ex
 perimental validation is needed. Our study provides another example for th
 e uniqueness of marine plasmids and emphasizes the need for further studie
 s and characterization of marine plasmids.
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