Date of Award
Spring 1-1-2014
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
First Advisor
Kenneth S. Krauter
Second Advisor
Rob D. Knight
Third Advisor
Diana R. Nemergut
Fourth Advisor
Norman R. Pace
Fifth Advisor
Mark Winey
Abstract
Recent advances in DNA sequencing technology have led to a revolution in our capacity to detect and quantify microbial organisms. A universally conserved marker gene, such as the ribosomal small subunit, is often sequenced during microbial surveys. Many of these microbes are as of yet uncultured. However, it is still possible via sequencing to correlate particular microbes, cultivated or not, with environmental conditions (e.g. limited oxygen content) or with host physiology (e.g. inflammatory bowel disease). Despite this culture-free approach, bias can still arise from the choice of PCR primers used. Secondly, sequencing projects can yield tens of millions of sequences, which presents complications for microbial ecologists: how can microbial sequence data be analyzed in a reproducible manner, and how can software to handle such analyses be made accessible to individuals without extensive computational background?
Recommended Citation
Walters, William Anton, "Taxonomic Signatures of Human Gut Microbiota across Body Mass Index and Inflammatory Bowel Disease States as Revealed by Meta-analyses of High-Throughput Sequencing Surveys" (2014). Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Graduate Theses & Dissertations. 24.
https://scholar.colorado.edu/mcdb_gradetds/24