Comparative Fungal Community Analyses Using Metatranscriptomics and Internal Transcribed Spacer Amplicon Sequencing from Norway Spruce

• Published in: mSystems
• Main Authors: Schneider, Andreas N., Sundh, John, Sundstrom, Gorel, Richau, Kerstin, Delhomme, Nicolas, Grabherr, Manfred, Hurry, Vaughan, Street, Nathaniel R.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för medicinsk biokemi och mikrobiologi 2021
• Subjects: fungi; metatranscriptomics; ITS amplicon sequencing; Norway spruce; nutrient enrichment; ectomycorrhiza; tree roots; phyllosphere; phyllosphere-inhabiting microbes; Bioinformatics and Systems Biology; Bioinformatik och systembiologi; Norway; Northern Sweden
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-443036; https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00884-20

The health, growth, and fitness of boreal forest trees are impacted and improved by their associated microbiomes. Microbial gene expression and functional activity can be assayed with RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) data from host samples. In contrast, phylogenetic marker gene amplicon sequencing data are used to assess taxonomic composition and community structure of the microbiome. Few studies have considered how much of this structural and taxonomic information is included in transcriptomic data from matched samples. Here, we described fungal communities using both host-derived RNA-Seq and fungal ITS1 DNA amplicon sequencing to compare the outcomes between the methods. We used a panel of root and needle samples from the coniferous tree species Picea abies (Norway spruce) growing in untreated (nutrient-deficient) and nutrient-enriched plots at the Flakaliden forest research site in boreal northern Sweden. We show that the relationship between samples and alpha and beta diversity indicated by the fungal transcriptome is in agreement with that generated by the ITS data, while also identifying a lack of taxonomic overlap due to limitations imposed by current database coverage. Furthermore, we demonstrate how metatranscriptomics data additionally provide biologically informative functional insights. At the community level, there were changes in starch and sucrose metabolism, biosynthesis of amino acids, and pentose and glucuronate interconversions, while processing of organic macromolecules, including aromatic and heterocyclic compounds, was enriched in transcripts assigned to the genus Cortinarius. IMPORTANCE A deeper understanding of microbial communities associated with plants is revealing their importance for plant health and productivity. RNA extracted from plant field samples represents the host and other organisms present. Typically, gene expression studies focus on the plant component or, in a limited number of studies, expression in one or more associated organisms. However, metatranscriptomic data are rarely ...