Lin Jun, Jiang Wenqian, Chen Lin, Zhang Huilian, Shi Yang, Liu Xin, Cai Weiwen
Institute of Applied Genomics, Fuzhou University, No.2 Xueyuan Road, Fuzhou, 350108, China.
School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fujian Medical University, No.1 Xuefubei Road, Fuzhou, 350122, China.
BMC Genomics. 2021 Mar 11;22(1):173. doi: 10.1186/s12864-021-07424-5.
Genetic resources are important natural assets. Discovery of new enzyme gene sequences has been an ongoing effort in biotechnology industry. In the genomic age, genomes of microorganisms from various environments have been deciphered. Increasingly, it has become more and more difficult to find novel enzyme genes. In this work, we attempted to use the easily accessible banknotes to search for novel microbial gene sequences.
We used high-throughput genomic sequencing technology to comprehensively characterize the diversity of microorganisms on the US dollars and Chinese Renminbis (RMBs). In addition to finding a vast diversity of microbes, we found a significant number of novel gene sequences, including an unreported superoxide dismutase (SOD) gene, whose catalytic activity was further verified by experiments.
We demonstrated that banknotes could be a good and convenient genetic resource for finding economically valuable biologicals.
遗传资源是重要的自然资产。发现新的酶基因序列一直是生物技术产业不断努力的方向。在基因组时代，来自各种环境的微生物基因组已被破译。越来越难以找到新的酶基因。在这项工作中，我们尝试利用易于获取的纸币来寻找新的微生物基因序列。
我们使用高通量基因组测序技术全面表征了美元和人民币上微生物的多样性。除了发现种类繁多的微生物外，我们还发现了大量新的基因序列，包括一个未报道的超氧化物歧化酶（SOD）基因，其催化活性通过实验得到了进一步验证。
我们证明了纸币可能是寻找具有经济价值生物制品的良好且便捷的遗传资源。
