0000000000702187
AUTHOR
Carlos P. Garay
Not just BLAST nt: WGS database joins the party
AbstractSince its introduction in 1990 and with over 50k citations, the NCBI BLAST family has been an essential tool of in silico molecular biology. The BLAST nt database, based on the traditional divisions of GenBank, has been the default and most comprehensive database for nucleotide BLAST searches and for taxonomic classification software in metagenomics. Here we argue that this is no longer the case. Currently, the NCBI WGS database contains one billion reads (almost five times more than GenBank), and with 4.4 trillion nucleotides, WGS has about 14 times more nucleotides than GenBank. This ratio is growing with time. We advocate a change in the database paradigm in taxonomic classificat…
Time Series Analysis of the Microbiota of Children Suffering From Acute Infectious Diarrhea and Their Recovery After Treatment
WOS: 000434952800001
Health and Disease Imprinted in the Time Variability of the Human Microbiome
The human microbiota correlates closely with the health status of its host. This article analyzes the microbial composition of several subjects under different conditions over time spans that ranged from days to months. Using the Langevin equation as the basis of our mathematical framework to evaluate microbial temporal stability, we proved that stable microbiotas can be distinguished from unstable microbiotas. This initial step will help us to determine how temporal microbiota stability is related to a subject’s health status and to develop a more comprehensive framework that will provide greater insight into this complex system.