Time-series analyses of Monterey Bay coastal microbial picoplankton using a “genome proxy” microarray. Time-series analyses of Monterey Bay coastal microbial picoplankton using a “genome proxy” microarray

To gain improved temporal, spatial and phylogenetic resolution of marine microbial communities, in this study we expanded the original prototype genome proxy array (an oligonucleotide microarray targeting marine microbial genome fragments and genomes), evaluated it against metagenomic sequencing, and applied it to time series samples from the Monterey Bay long term ecological research site. The expanded array targeted 268 microbial genotypes (vs. 14 in the original prototype) across much of the known diversity of cultured and uncultured marine microbes. The target abundances measured by the genome proxy array were highly correlated to pyrosequence-based abundances (linear regression R2 = 0.85-0.91, p= 3 arrays. In addition to negative control probes, for each hyrbdization date and run a negative control array was hyrbdized for which the input DNA was TE, taken through the entire aplification, labeling, and hybridization process.