Environmental Microbiology seminars

Three presentations examine how long-read sequencing can improve biodiversity resources and their use in conservation and environmental decisions. Evgeny Glazov introduces amplification-free nanopore sequencing, direct detection of base modifications and flexible read lengths for natural-resource research. Kara Dicks discusses scaling bird and fish reference assemblies through the Tree of Life programme. The presentation addresses completeness of genes, repeats and regulatory regions, difficult avian microchromosomes and GC-rich sequences, and the balance between standardized production and adaptation to diverse species. Steven Robbins examines marine microbes missed by short-read assembly because of GC bias and strain diversity. Work underlying the Great Barrier Reef Microbial Genomes Database uses long-read and hybrid assemblies to recover overlooked lineages including Pelagibacter, Prochlorococcus and SAR86. The reported improvements include twice the genome recovery, three times as many high-quality assemblies and approximately tenfold greater contiguity. Long reads also expose chromosome-scale algal genomes and previously missed structural variation. Together, these approaches support biodiversity monitoring, ecosystem assessment and policy.

Bacteriophage genomes offer a large reservoir of enzymes adapted to extreme environments. This seminar examines endolysins, enzymes that break down bacterial cell walls, as potential antimicrobial agents for agriculture, food production and sanitation. Cold-adapted variants could support cleaning at lower temperatures, while heat-tolerant variants may serve fermentation, food processing and alternatives to antibiotics. Amy Wiseman presents research combining metagenomic sequences from Icelandic hot springs and Arctic seawater with AlphaFold and other prediction methods, biophysical experiments, X-ray crystallography and biochemical characterization. The work investigates candidate cold-adapted and thermophilic endolysins, reveals unexpected structural features, and considers what these features imply for evolution, environmental adaptation and enzyme function. The talk connects sequence mining and structural prediction with experimental validation, biotechnology applications and rational enzyme design.