Researchers have assembled the entire collection of RNA molecules for more than 650 microbial life forms and posted the data freely online as part a project that could enlighten our understanding of ecological processes in the ocean.
The Marine Microbial Eukaryotic Transcriptome Sequencing Project (MMETSP) is an international collaboration that was conceived of and funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and carried out by the National Center for Genome Resources, two culture repositories, and dozens of laboratories around the world. It involves CIFAR Senior Fellow and Program Director Patrick Keeling (University of British Columbia) and CIFAR Senior Fellows Alexandra Worden (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute), John Archibald, Alastair Simpson (both Dalhousie University) and Brian Leander (University of British Columbia), CIFAR Fellow Claudio Slamovits (Dalhousie University), and CIFAR Advisor Virginia Armbrust (University of Washington).
MMETSP delved into the enormous task of sequencing the transcriptome — the collection of RNA molecules found in an organism’s cells — of hundreds of species of eukaryotes, a category that includes any organism whose cells contain a nucleus, from seaweed to humans. Many of the ocean-inhabiting eukaryotes chosen for study are poorly understood, although many play key roles in marine ecosystems.
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