Seminar of the Department of Microbiology

Identifying microbial biodiversity in soil with a focus on the phylum Patescibacteriota and characterizing viruses and their hosts using a metagenomic approach

 

Fatemeh Qasemnejadlangerodi  – PhD candidate – UIBK – Environmental OMICS

08.05.2025, 11:00 - Hybrid

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  • or in presence: Seminarraum Biologie - Foyer (Technikerstraße 25, Viktor-Franz-Hess Haus, Parterre).

 

 Abstract

Fatemeh

Soil is a dynamic reservoir of microbial life, hosting diverse communities of prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and viruses that are critical to ecosystem functioning through nutrient cycling, organic matter decomposition, and disease suppression. The rhizosphere—the narrow soil zone influenced by root exudates—harbors especially active microbial communities that enhance plant health through growth promotion and pathogen defense. While common taxa like Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria dominate the rhizosphere microbiome, low-abundance microbial taxa (relative abundance <0.1%) also play essential, yet understudied, roles in supporting plant well-being. Among these, members of the phylum Patescibacteriota are notable for their small genomes, potential symbiotic lifestyles, and underrepresentation in amplicon-based studies due to primer mismatches and the presence of introns in their 16S rRNA genes.

In my PhD project, I extract DNA from rhizosphere soil, rhizosphere extract, and bulk soil samples collected from five biological replicates across four sites in Tirol. I perform metagenomic sequencing, followed by assembly and binning of the data to generate metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs). The goal is to uncover novel microbial taxa, particularly Patescibacteriota, and analyze their functional potential using bioinformatic pipelines for gene and metabolic pathway detection. Particular focus is placed on the metabolic reconstruction of low-abundance microbial genomes to better understand their ecological roles in the rhizosphere. In the future, I aim to identify viral genomes from soil and predict their microbial hosts. These viruses, particularly bacteriophages, modulate microbial dynamics through gene transfer and host lysis, contributing both beneficial and detrimental effects to soil health and plant–microbe interactions.

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