Congratulations to Maria Bashenkhaeva on obtaining the Russian Scientific Foundation grant on the topic “Analysis of metabolic potential of Lake Baikal microbial community using methods of metagenomics and metatranscriptomics”!

The project is aimed to study taxonomic structure and metabolic potential of freshwater Baikal microbial communities using 16S rRNA sequencing, metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analysis data. Due to sampling during different seasons (spring, summer, autumn), the communities will be compared and peculiarities in the composition of functional genes appropriate to a definite development period will be revealed. Moreover, their interrelationship with hydrochemical environmental factors will be analyzed. Besides revealing of genes responsible for matter turnover, there is a scientific interest in studies of genes responsible for mechanisms of adaptation to environmental conditions (e.g., to low temperature during ice period (genes responsible for desaturases, proteins of cold shock, antifreeze proteins synthesis)). Identification of active adaptation genes will allow further experiments by their expression under laboratory conditions. During the project fulfillment, new data on microbial communities functioning of largest freshwater lake worldwide will be obtained; they will have both basic and practical importance for microbiology and ecology.