METAPROTEOMICS- THE GATEWAY TO MICROBIAL COMMUNITY STRUCTURE-FUNCTION ANALYSIS

Guest Speaker: Dirk Benndorf (Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, Magdeburg, Germany).

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Organisers: Dr. Jags Pandhal (The University of Sheffield) and Professor Liz Wellington (The University of Warwick)

Where: The Diamond, The University of Sheffield, 32 Leavygreave Rd, Sheffield S3 7RD, UK

Understanding interactions between organisms in an ecosystem is a critical part of ecological research and facilitates our understanding of how ecosystems function, and this is particularly important for microorganisms and microarthropods as they are often difficult to study in situ in real time. Currently the natural environment faces many challenges and we need to be able to measure the impacts of changes in climate, pollutant levels, intensive farming and development of ley systems to understand how resilient communities are and how carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous cycles are affected. Moreover, there is a growing appreciation within industry, for controlling and optimising microbial community function.

Microrganisms play a vital role in our environment. They occupy a wide range of habitats from our gut and body surfaces all

the way to hot vents under the sea, they are critical in the soil for recycling of nutrients and plant health and responsible for

the essential digestion of cellulose from grass being broken down in the specialised stomach of the cow termed the rumen  

to the global cycling of carbon in the oceans via harvesting of sunlight as many bacteria can photosynthesize and thus

harvest light energy to fix carbon dioxide. A major problem exists in our ability to study the physiology and overall activities

of these microbes due to the fact that we cannot isolate and cultivate (yet) the vast majority (probably over 98%) of them in

the laboratory. We know they exist because we have used methods similar to DNA forensic approaches to detect them

solely based on their DNA using signature genes which allow us to identify and group them. Most of this diversity is

bacterial but there are also many groups of fungi and algae. New methods are constantly being developed for the study of these microbial populations, with metagenomics being the most commonly applied. It is now possible to use deep sequencing and assemble thousands of bacteria into near complete genomes from metagenomic data (MAGs). This technique allows us to gain insight into the composition of the population (Who's there?) and well as enable us to predict fucntion (What could they be doing?). However, this meeting is largely focussed on the proteins produced by these microbes, a field termed metaproteomics. Proteins equate with activity in cells, as enzymes are proteins and act as catalysts for reactions. Therefore, characterising proteins produced in microbial populations really enables us to look at function (What are they doing?). In the UK, there are outdated perceptions on metaproteomics, and its often the "last to be included" omics analysis.

This meeting aims to bring together researchers with an interest in improving overall 

understanding of environmental and industrially relevant microbiomes. We will focus on linking metagenomes to metaproteomes to demonstrate the power of rapidly advancing technology.

To achieve this we aim to:

1. Share latest metaproteomics workflows, with emphasis on open source computational pipelines for protein identification

2. Demonstrate processes for assembly of metagenome sequences as well as metagenome assembled genomes (MAGs). 

3. Discuss intergration with other omics data and traditional (microbial) ecology datasets.

4. Present details of an open competition where the winner will be able to submit environmental samples for metaproteomic analysis

The overall aim of this workshop is to establish a network of academic/industry partners to build capacity in this important area of science to ensure that we are able to study and exploit all the interesting and exciting attributes of microbial populations and harness them for a sustainable future.

£25 per person. This cost includes two lunches and one dinner. Accommodation is not covered. If you want to stay at Leopold Hotel in the City Centre please request a University of Sheffield discount code from j.pandhal@sheffield.ac.uk

Register at: https://onlineshop.shef.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/faculty-of-engineering/chemical-and-biological-engineering/metaproteomics-the-gateway-to-microbial-community-structurefunction-analysis