Quality Annotation of Mycorrhizal Fungi Sequences
Author Information
Author(s): Tedersoo Leho, Abarenkov Kessy, Nilsson R. Henrik, Schüssler Arthur, Grelet Gwen-Aëlle, Kohout Petr, Oja Jane, Bonito Gregory M., Veldre Vilmar, Jairus Teele, Ryberg Martin, Larsson Karl-Henrik, Kõljalg Urmas
Primary Institution: Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
Hypothesis
How can we improve the quality and metadata annotation of fungal ITS sequences in the International Nucleotide Sequence Databases?
Conclusion
The study successfully annotated and improved the quality of fungal ITS sequences, making them publicly available for further research.
Supporting Evidence
- 35,632 sequences were analyzed for mycorrhizal fungi.
- 2,174 sequences were identified as low quality.
- 677 sequences were considered chimeric.
- 78% of sequences had country of collection data.
- 96.4% of sequences had isolation source information.
Takeaway
This study helps scientists better understand mycorrhizal fungi by cleaning up and adding information to a large database of their DNA sequences.
Methodology
Fungal ITS sequences were downloaded, aligned, and annotated with metadata to improve quality and usability.
Potential Biases
Potential biases may arise from the reliance on existing databases and the subjective nature of quality assessments.
Limitations
Many sequences in the database were poorly annotated or of low quality, and the study focused only on sequences available as of January 2011.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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