Chinese-Norwegian collaboration on metagenomics in complex environments

We here apply for a grant to start a bilateral collaboration between our research groups at UMB (UMB Nitrogen Group and Gut Microflora Group) and the Key State Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, Shanghai University, China. The project targets the link be tween genomic/transcriptomics and metabolism of two complex systems, soils/wastewaters and gut flora. Metagenomic studies during the past decade have unraveled an overwhelming diversity in such systems, and the majority of the organisms within these syste ms are yet uncultured. Recent studies using metatranscriptomics have oftensuffered from a weak link between the phenotypic output from these communities and their activity as seen from gene transcripts analyses. We plan to use a new incubation robot techn ique (developed at UMB) that allows close monitoring of the gas kinetics connected to switches between oxic/anoxic conditions in denitrifier communities of soils and sediments. This will provide detailed data on phenotypic characteristics of the microbial communities and to link this to transcriptomics. We will also start using it to study the effect of signal gas molecules on gut microbiota. Building such a robot in Shanghai will be part of the project, to enable closer collaboration using similar instr umentation in our respective laboratories. We plan visits by young researchers to the respective labs for technology transfer. Moreover, we plan research visits in terms of seminars to exchange knowledge and research results. We also plan a small workshop to design a new, full research application for a joint research project.