New computer-based tools for exploring phenotypic data on microbial resources and creating paths for new discoveries

Kurzfassung

Over the past decades, a large number of new species of bacteria and archaea have been successfully isolated in the laboratory, described as new taxa and studied under different angles. Given their drastic increase in numbers, the phenotypic data listed in these hundreds of new species' descriptions is increasingly hard to navigate, compare across, or quickly filter when looking for desired traits. Our work helps to address this issue by looking into two groups in different domains–the Halobacteria and the Bacillus group– and developing two freely accessible online databases with different functionalities. The database on Halobacteria (a class of extremely halophilic archaea) aims to compile phenotypic information on all validly published species within this group. Halobacteria are found in extremely high salinity environments, which they usually dominate, and are seen as a key group for Biotechnology and for Astrobiology. Our overview of astrobiology data detected gaps in coverage and identified clear targets for future studies. The database on Bacillus is meant to focus on species within the Bacillus group. Known for their typical sturdiness, they include problematic species for planetary protection as they are regular contaminants in space mission preparation and have also found widespread use in biotechnology both on our planet and potentially beyond. Indeed, they are prime candidates for future in situ resource utilization (ISRU) and cutting down costs of future missions and helping to support sustainable, long-term human presence in space. Curiously, some species in this group have the ability to precipitate carbonate biominerals. After collecting and screening out over 1270 literature sources on the prokaryotic precipitation of carbonate biominerals, we have now extracted all microbes that produce biogenic carbonate and found that Bacillus is the most represented group. The resulting databases will be of great use in different fields of academia and industry by allowing rapid comparison of large amounts of data and enabling e.g., the detection and analysis of trends of taxonomic relevance, the targeted screening and identification of species with relevant capabilities for biotechnology, or even the analysis of these organisms under the lens of Astrobiology. Most importantly, they will create paths for new discoveries by allowing us to quickly identify clear gaps in coverage and our knowledge and assist us in defining new testing priorities to address these.