Amplicon analyses

Marker gene amplicons

  • 16s rRNA, 18s rRNA, ITS1/2
  • Taxonomic profiling
  • OTU clustering
  • taxonomy -> function inferences

Learning objectives

  • Define a marker gene and its taxonomic relevance.
  • Distinguish between amplicon vs. shotgun approach.
  • Apply a marker gene analysis workflow
  • Analyse the taxonomic composition of an environment.
  • Interpret results in biological context
  • Describe and execute an amplicon workflow
  • Install software for amplicon analysis
  • Assemble paired-end reads
  • Execute a shell script to automate a process
  • Describe input and output files for amplicon workflows and scripts
  • Describe the structure and components of a good mapping/metadata file
  • Move sequences from compute resources to local computer
  • Obtain summary information about sequence files (fasta, fna, fastq)
  • Define operational taxaonomic units (OTUs)
  • Align sequences, assign taxonomy, and build a tree with representative sequences from OTU definitions
  • Calculate similarity of two samples (similarity matrices)
  • Visualize comparative diversity across a priori categorical groups
  • Convert .biom formatted OTU tables to text files for use outside of QIIME