Lesker, T.R. et al. Cell Rep. 30, 2909–2922 (2020)

What makes up the microbiome of the mouse gut? The level of detail that can be captured often depends on the sequencing approach used and the gene catalogs and databases referenced to determine the microbes present. To help make more complete assemblies of mouse microbiomes, researchers working with Till Strowig’s lab at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Germany present the integrated Mouse Gut Metagenomic Catalog (iMGMC).

The team developed a bioinformatics workflow to combine several existing gene catalogs that included 4.6 million genes and 660 metagenome-assembled genomes, The resource provides high taxonomic resolution, which can be used to help characterize microbiome profiles to species-level in mouse gut samples. The iMGMC resource can be accessed via github.