Metagenomic Analysis of the Marine Sponge, Cinachyrella keukenthali: Insights into an Emerging Model Sponge

Cinachyrella keukenthali is quickly emerging as a model sponge. Its small size makes it ideal for laboratory sized aquaria and long-term experiments. It is also on the Global Invertebrate Genome Alliance's priority list for genome sequencing. Other experiments have also included a focused amplicon sequencing experiment wherein, two subtypes of Cinachyrella keukenthali may be present in the environment based on microbiome results and some of the ongoing efforts of the global sponge microbiome project. What is poorly understood is the functional potential of the sponge microbiota. We analysed two metagenomes of C. keukenthali to determine non-PCR biased taxonomic makeup, functional potential, metabonomic analysis, and an early look into the microeukaryotes that might be present in the sponge