BioProject

Marine genomics and metagenomics (the study of genetic material recovered directly from marine environmental samples) are still in its infancy, but it is rapidly expanding. More...

Marine genomics and metagenomics (the study of genetic material recovered directly from marine environmental samples) are still in its infancy, but it is rapidly expanding. To prevent the large-scale implementation of such studies from being disruptive (where the data production is faster than the speed users are able to analyze and interpret it) there is an urgent need to establish dedicated data management e-infrastructure and bioinformatics pipelines specialized for marine research. The EBI metagenomics portal has for the last year analyzed 3 trillion nucleotides and an increase of 98% over the previous year. To address some of these challenges the Norwegian node suggests establishing a pilot towards marine metagenomics together with EBI and potentially other collaboration partners as a start for marine services. While EBI has developed the EBI-metagenomics portal, a generic pipeline, which aims to provide insights into the phylogenetic diversity as well as the functional and metabolic potential of the samples, the Norwegian node has developed Meta-pipe in the direction coupled with marine bioprospecting. Both approaches have their own strengths and weakness, and while there is some overlap in the respective approaches, it is clear that the optimal solution for the community would be harmonization and interoperability between the analysis platforms. The Norwegian node together with EBI and potentially other partners will harmonize existing pipelines and develop new or improve established components in the pipelines in order to establish long-term sustainable service platforms and not least to start building a "user community" for marine metagenomics analysis in ELIXIR Less...