BackgroundVariation of microorganism communities in the rumen of cattle (Bos taurus) is of great interest because of possible links to economically or environmentally important traits, such as feed conversion efficiency or methane emission levels. The resolution of studies investigating this variation may be improved by utilizing untargeted massively parallel sequencing (MPS), that is, sequencing without targeted amplification of genes. The objective of this study was to develop a method which used MPS to generate “rumen metagenome profiles”, and to investigate if these profiles were repeatable among samples taken from the same cow. Given faecal samples are much easier to obtain than rumen fluid samples; we also investigated whether rumen metagenome profiles were predictive of faecal metagenome profiles.ResultsRather than focusing on individual organisms within the rumen, our method used MPS data to generate quantitative rumen micro-biome profiles, regardless of taxonomic classifications. The method requires a previously assembled reference metagenome. A number of such reference metagenomes were considered, including two rumen derived metagenomes, a human faecal microflora metagenome and a reference metagenome made up of publically available prokaryote sequences. Sequence reads from each test sample were aligned to these references. The “rumen metagenome profile” was generated from the number of the reads that aligned to each contig in the database. We used this method to test the hypothesis that rumen fluid microbial community profiles vary more between cows than within multiple samples from the same cow. Rumen fluid samples were taken from three cows, at three locations within the rumen. DNA from the samples was sequenced on the Illumina GAIIx. When the reads were aligned to a rumen metagenome reference, the rumen metagenome profiles were repeatable (P < 0.00001) by cow regardless of location of sampling rumen fluid. The repeatability was estimated at 9%, albeit with a high standard error, reflecting the small number of animals in the study. Finally, we compared rumen microbial profiles to faecal microbial profiles. Our hypothesis, that there would be a stronger correlation between faeces and rumen fluid from the same cow than between faeces and rumen fluid from different cows, was not supported by our data (with much greater significance of rumen versus faeces effect than animal effect in mixed linear model).ConclusionsWe have presented a simple and high throughput method of metagenome profiling to assess the similarity of whole metagenomes, and illustrated its use on two novel datasets. This method utilises widely used freeware. The method should be useful in the exploration and comparison of metagenomes.

The nucleoprotein (NP) of influenza viruses is a multifunctional protein with essential roles throughout viral replication. Despite influenza A and B viruses belonging to separate genera of the Orthomyxoviridae family, their NP proteins share a relatively high level of sequence conservation. However, NP of influenza B viruses (BNP) contains an evolutionarily conserved N-terminal 50-amino-acid extension that is absent from NP of influenza A viruses. There is conflicting evidence as to the functions of the BNP N-terminal extension; however, this has never been assessed in the context of viral infection. We have used reverse genetics to assess the significance of this region on the functions of BNP and virus viability. The truncation of more than three amino acids prevented virus recovery, suggesting that the N-terminal extension is essential for virus viability. Mutational analysis indicated that multiple regions of the protein are involved in the nuclear localization of BNP, with the entire N-terminal extension required for this to function efficiently. Viruses containing mutations in the first 10 residues of BNP demonstrated few differences in nuclear localization; however, the viruses exhibited significant reductions in viral mRNA transcription and genome replication, resulting in significantly attenuated phenotypes. Mutations introduced to ablate a previously reported nuclear localization signal also resulted in a significant decrease in mRNA production during early stages of viral replication. Overall, our results demonstrate that the N-terminal extension of BNP is essential to virus viability not only for directing nuclear localization of BNP but also for regulating viral mRNA transcription and genome replication. IMPORTANCEThe multifunctional NP of influenza viruses has roles throughout the viral replication cycle; therefore, it is essential for virus viability. Despite high levels of homology between the NP of influenza A and B viruses, the NP of influenza B virus contains an evolutionarily conserved 50-amino-acid N-terminal extension that is absent from the NP of influenza A viruses. In this study, we show that this N-terminal extension is essential for virus viability, and we confirm and expand upon recent findings that this region of BNP is required for nuclear localization of the protein. Furthermore, we demonstrate for the first time that the N terminus of BNP is involved in regulating viral mRNA transcription and replication of the viral genome. As the NP of influenza A virus lacks this N-terminal extension, these viruses may have evolved separate mechanisms to regulate these processes.