Annotating public fungal ITS sequences from the built environment according to the MIxS-Built Environment standard – a report from a May 23-24, 2016 workshop (Gothenburg, Sweden)
Kessy Abarenkov,
Rachel I. Adams,
Irinyi Laszlo,
Ahto Agan,
Elia Ambrosio,
Alexandre Antonelli,
Mohammad Bahram,
Johan Bengtsson-Palme,
Gunilla Bok,
Patrik Cangren,
Victor Coimbra,
Claudia Coleine,
Claes Gustafsson,
Jinhong He,
Tobias Hofmann,
Erik Kristiansson,
Ellen Larsson,
Tomas Larsson,
Yingkui Liu,
Svante Martinsson,
Wieland Meyer,
Marina Panova,
Nuttapon Pombubpa,
Camila Ritter,
Martin Ryberg,
Sten Svantesson,
Ruud Scharn,
Ola Svensson,
Mats Töpel,
Martin Unterseher,
Cobus Visagie,
Christian Wurzbacher,
Andy F.S. Taylor,
Urmas Kõljalg,
Lynn Schriml,
R. Henrik Nilsson
Affiliations
Kessy Abarenkov
University of Tartu
Rachel I. Adams
University of California
Irinyi Laszlo
Sydney Medical School-Westmead Hospital (Sidney), University of Sydney (Sidney) and Westmead Institute for Medical Research
Ahto Agan
University of Tartu
Elia Ambrosio
University of Tartu
Alexandre Antonelli
University of Gothenburg and Gothenburg Botanical Garden
Mohammad Bahram
University of Tartu (Tartu, Estonia) and Uppsala University
Johan Bengtsson-Palme
University of Gothenburg
Gunilla Bok
SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden
Patrik Cangren
University of Gothenburg
Victor Coimbra
Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE)
Claudia Coleine
University of Tuscia
Claes Gustafsson
University of Gothenburg
Jinhong He
South China Botanical Garden, The Chinese Academy of Sciences
Tobias Hofmann
University of Gothenburg
Erik Kristiansson
Chalmers University of Technology
Ellen Larsson
University of Gothenburg
Tomas Larsson
University of Gothenburg
Yingkui Liu
University of Gothenburg
Svante Martinsson
University of Gothenburg
Wieland Meyer
Sydney Medical School-Westmead Hospital (Sidney), University of Sydney (Sidney) and Westmead Institute for Medical Research
Marina Panova
University of Gothenburg
Nuttapon Pombubpa
University of California Riverside
Camila Ritter
University of Gothenburg
Martin Ryberg
Uppsala University
Sten Svantesson
University of Gothenburg
Ruud Scharn
University of Gothenburg
Ola Svensson
University of Gothenburg
Mats Töpel
University of Gothenburg
Martin Unterseher
Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University Greifswald
Cobus Visagie
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and University of Ottawa
Christian Wurzbacher
University of Gothenburg
Andy F.S. Taylor
The James Hutton Institute and University of Aberdeen
Recent molecular studies have identified substantial fungal diversity in indoor environments. Fungi and fungal particles have been linked to a range of potentially unwanted effects in the built environment, including asthma, decay of building materials, and food spoilage. The study of the built mycobiome is hampered by a number of constraints, one of which is the poor state of the metadata annotation of fungal DNA sequences from the built environment in public databases. In order to enable precise interrogation of such data – for example, “retrieve all fungal sequences recovered from bathrooms” – a workshop was organized at the University of Gothenburg (May 23-24, 2016) to annotate public fungal barcode (ITS) sequences according to the MIxS-Built Environment annotation standard (http://gensc.org/mixs/). The 36 participants assembled a total of 45,488 data points from the published literature, including the addition of 8,430 instances of countries of collection from a total of 83 countries, 5,801 instances of building types, and 3,876 instances of surface-air contaminants. The results were implemented in the UNITE database for molecular identification of fungi (http://unite.ut.ee) and were shared with other online resources. Data obtained from human/animal pathogenic fungi will furthermore be verified on culture based metadata for subsequent inclusion in the ISHAM-ITS database (http://its.mycologylab.org).
