The most extensive study of ocean DNA discloses the rich world of ocean microbes. With more than 317 million gene clusters, the KMAP Global Ocean Gene Catalog 1.0 is an open-source record that can drive biotechnology revolution and discover the role of marine microbes in justifying global warming and protecting human and environmental health.
The ocean is the world’s largest habitat, yet much of its biodiversity is still unidentified. A paper published in Frontiers in Science symbols a momentous breakthrough, reporting the largest and most complete database of marine microorganisms to date – coordinated with biological function, location, and habitat type.
The KMAP Global Ocean Gene Catalog 1.0 is a strive toward understanding the ocean’s full multiplicity, comprising more than 317 million gene clusters from marine organisms around the world, said principal author Elisa Laiolo of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). The collection emphases on marine microbes, which significantly impact human lives through their impact on the ocean’s health and the Earth’s climate.
The catalog is freely obtainable through the KAUST Metagenomic Analysis Platform (KMAP), informed the study’s senior author, Prof Carlos Duarte, a world spearhead in biological oceanography and marine ecology also at KAUST. Researchers can access the catalog remotely to examine how diverse ocean ecosystems work, record the impact of pollution and global warming, and explore for biotechnology applications such as new antibiotics or new methods to break down plastics – the potentials are endless!
Scientists have been plotting marine biodiversity for hundreds of years, but confronted various challenges to generating a full atlas of ocean life. One is that most marine organisms cannot be observed in a laboratory. The dawn of DNA sequencing technologies disabled this by permitting organisms to be recognized directly from ocean water and sediments.
Since each species has its individual set of genes, we can recognize which organisms are in an ocean sample by examining its genetic material, Laiolo clarified. Two scientific advances have made this conceivable at scale.
The first is the huge increase in speed, and reduction in cost, of DNA sequencing technologies. This has permitted scientists to sequence all the genetic material in thousands of ocean samples.
The second is the expansion of huge computational power and AI technologies, which make it conceivable to examine these millions of sequences.
The team used KMAP to scan DNA sequences from 2,102 ocean samples taken at various depths and locations all over the world. This innovative computing structure identified 317.5 million gene groups, of which more than half could be identified according to organism category and gene function. By corresponding this data with the sample site and habitat type, the resulting catalog deliver precedented information on which microbes live where and what they do.
This accomplishment reflects the critical importance of open science, informs Duarte. Construction the catalog was possible, thanks to determined global sailing voyages, where the samples were gathered and the sharing of the samples’ DNA in the open-access European Nucleotide Archive. We are continuing these cooperative efforts by creation the catalog freely obtainable.
The catalog has already exposed a variance in microbial movement in the water column and ocean floor, as well as a astonishing number of fungi existing in the ‘twilight’ mesopelagic zone. These and other understandings will help researchers comprehend how microbes living in diverse habitats shape ecosystems, donate to ocean health, and impact the climate.
The catalog also aids as a baseline for tracking the consequence of human influences like pollution and global warming on aquatic life. And it offers a treasure of genetic material that scientists can examine for new genes that could be utilized for drug development, energy, and agriculture.
The KMAP Ocean Gene Catalog 1.0 is a primary step towards developing a chart of the global ocean genome, which will document every single gene from every marine species globally – from bacteria and fungi to plants and animals.
Our examination highlights the necessity to continue sampling the oceans, concentrating on areas that are under-studied, such as the deep sea and the ocean floor. Similarly, since the ocean is continually changing – both owing to human activity and to natural processes – the catalog will need frequent updating, said Laiolo. Duarte cautions that despite its clear benefit, the continuity of the catalog is not certain. A main obstacle is the position of international legislation on benefit-sharing from discoveries made in international waters.
While the 2023 Treaty of the High Seas suggest some solutions, it may unintentionally hinder research by reducing motivations for companies and governments to invest. Such uncertainty must be attended to, now that we have touched the point where genetic and artificial intelligence technologies could reveal extraordinary innovation and progress in blue biotechnology, he concluded.
