Binning and Functional Annotation

In this final lesson we will finish off our analysis by separating out the individual genomes into metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) using a process called binning. Binning can be done in lots of different ways but the general idea is to put all the “similar” contigs together into one bin. By the end we should have several bins each containing the genome of one organism - this is what we call a MAG.

Once we have our MAGs we can annotate them to predict where genes are and what function they have. This is useful for predicting the metabolic capacity of each organism. We can also look up these predicted gene sequences in a database and build taxonomic trees to make an educated guess about what species we are looking at.

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

At the end of the lesson we will briefly discuss other resources which may be useful to you for metagenomic analysis in future.

Schedule

00:00 1. Metagenome Binning How can we obtain the original genomes from a metagenome?
01:40 2. QC of metagenome bins How can we assess the quality of the metagenome bins?
02:40 3. Functional annotation How can we add functional annotation to our bins?
How can we identify what pathways these are involved with?
03:30 4. Other Resources Where can I find other metagenomic resources?
03:45 Finish

The actual schedule may vary slightly depending on topics and exercises chosen by the instructor.