8158 – Molecular Barcoding Tools and Methods for Spatial Mapping of Complex Microbial Communities with Single-Cell Resolution

Detection and identification of microbial organisms within microbial communities is frequently approached using metagenomic sequencing. These methods, however, do not provide spatial context that can be crucial for studying microbial organization as well as the functional interactions between these organisms and their ecosystem. Another approach, the identification of differently labelled microbe species is highly constrained by the number of labels that can be used simultaneously as well as the difficulty of distinguishing between individual microbes. The De Vlaminck lab has developed a spatially resolved metagenomics (SRM) approach synthesizing a modified in-situ hybridization strategy with multispectral imaging and innovative software to identify hundreds to thousands of unique species in dense microbial communities with single-microbe resolution. This method has been thoroughly tested for false identification rates in controlled conditions and has advanced to be used for analysis of human oral (a) and mouse gut (b) biofilm microbiomes. The software and kits developed utilizing and/or in support of this method are highly flexible and will support analysis for many applications. Aris Despo add74@cornell.edu 607-254-4698