Scientists did experiments to study fake microorganisms and found that the results of their investigation weren’t accurate because the DNA databases used in it weren’t complete.
Studying bacteria from a group of organisms, known as “microbiome”, is often not accurate because scientists don’t have enough data about the DNA in their records. Aiese Cigliano from Sequentia Biotech SL, Clemente Fernandez Arias and Federica Bertocchini from Centro de Investigaciones Biologicas Margarita Salas reported these inaccurate findings in a research paper published on February 8th in PLOS ONE journal.
Recently, scientists have been studying microorganisms in a variety of ways. For example, they look at the gut to figure out why someone might be obese or autistic. They also investigate environments for bacteria that can break down dangerous things or even make energy sources. To do this, these researchers use DNA testing–comparing what’s found in samples to stuff already in databases. But it may not be reliable because the databases only contain certain DNA which leaves out other possibilities.
To test the accuracy of current ways to study microbiomes, scientists used computers to make virtual sets of bacteria that copy what happens in nature. They tested them using regular techniques and then compared the results with the actual makeup of the bacteria set. The experiment showed that sometimes the information we get from looking at DNA can be different to what is really happening and some of the bacteria “seen” are not actually part of that group.
A study recently discovered that the methods used to identify different kinds of microbes (tiny organisms) in our environment have some mistakes. This means that scientists need more data from those tiny organisms and make it available publicly so they can keep track of them accurately. That way, until more info is collected, people should be careful when looking at results of studies about microbes.
The authors say that metagenomic analysis is not perfect, and we can do better with our databases and methods. We need to be careful when looking at this kind of data.
The article “The virtual microbiome: A computational framework to evaluate microbiome analyses” was written by Belén Serrano-Antón, Francisco Rodríguez-Ventura, Pere Colomer-Vidal, Riccardo Aiese Cigliano, Clemente F. Arias and Federica Bertocchini on the 8th of February 2023. It can be found online with the DOI number 10.1371/journal.pone.0280391.
The Roechling Foundation gave money so that FB and CFA could do research. BS was supported by the Spanish government. None of the people or organizations who paid for this research had input in what was done, like deciding what would be studied or how it got results.
