William Kelley Thomas

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Managing Director at University of New Hampshire

The ability to rapidly respond to wildlife health events is essential. However, such events are often unpredictable, especially with anthropogenic disturbances and climate-related environmental changes driving unforeseen threats. Many events also are short-lived and go undocumented, making it difficult to draw on lessons learned from past investiga...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is revolutionizing how we investigate biodiversity in aquatic and terrestrial environments. It is increasingly used for detecting rare and invasive species, assessing biodiversity loss and monitoring fish communities, as it is considered a cost-effective and noninvasive approach. Some environments, however, can be challengi...

Phylosymbiosis, the association between the phylogenetic relatedness of hosts and the composition of their microbial communities, is a widespread phenomenon in diverse animal taxa. However, the generality of the existence of such a pattern has been questioned in many animals across the tree of life, including small‐sized aquatic invertebrates. This...

Background: With the advances in high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatic pipelines, mitochondrial genomes have become increasingly popular for phylogenetic analyses across different clades of invertebrates. Despite the vast rise in available mitogenomic datasets of molluscs, one class of aplacophoran molluscs – Solenogastres (or Neomeniomorpha...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is revolutionizing how we investigate biodiversity in aquatic and terrestrial environments. It is increasingly used for detecting rare and invasive species, assessing biodiversity loss and monitoring fish communities, as it is considered a cost-effective and noninvasive approach. Some environments, however, can be challengi...

In 2021, news outlets and state natural resources agencies reported a large number of avian deaths across several states in the eastern and midwestern USA. This event fomented a rapid and robust response from animal health experts from across the country. Given the clustered pattern of disease and death, an infectious etiology was rigorously invest...

Transposable elements (TE) play critical roles in shaping genome evolution. Highly repetitive TE sequences are also a major source of assembly gaps making it difficult to fully understand the impact of these elements on host genomes. The increased capacity of long-read sequencing technologies to span highly repetitive regions promises to provide ne...

Mass mortality events in wildlife can be indications of an emerging infectious disease. During the spring and summer of 2021, hundreds of dead passerines were reported across the eastern US. Birds exhibited a range of clinical signs including swollen conjunctiva, ocular discharge, ataxia, and nystagmus. As part of the diagnostic investigation, high...

Streptomyces Strain San01 is isolated from the soil of ant-nest found in the tea estate of Darjeeling, India. The morphology, biochemical, as well as the molecular characteristics, proved that San01 belonged to the genus Streptomyces. The average nucleotide identity (ANI) value between the genome sequence of the studied strain and its closest phylo...

Salmonella isolated from dairy farms has a significant effect on animal health and productivity. Different serogroups of Salmonella affect both human and bovine cattle causing illness in both reservoirs. Dairy cows and calves can be silent Salmonella shedders, increasing the possibility of dispensing Salmonella within the farm. The aim of this stud...

Transposable elements (TE) play critical roles in shaping genome evolution. However, the highly repetitive sequence content of TEs is a major source of assembly gaps. This makes it difficult to decipher the impact of these elements on the dynamics of genome evolution. The increased capacity of long-read sequencing technologies to span highly repeti...

Background. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, efforts to better understand severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viral shedding and transmission in both unvaccinated and vaccinated populations remain critical to informing public health policies and vaccine development. The utility of using real time RT-PCR cycle threshold v...

Background: As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, efforts to better understand SARS-CoV-2 viral shedding and transmission in both unvaccinated and vaccinated populations remain critical to informing public health policies and vaccine development. The utility of using RT-PCR cycle threshold values (CT values) as a proxy for infectious viral titers fro...

Phylosymbiosis, the association between the phylogenetic relatedness of hosts and the composition of their microbial communities, is a widespread phenomenon in diverse animal taxa. However, the generality of the existence of such a pattern has been questioned, and there seems evidence against its occurrence in small-sized aquatic animals, for which...

Mass mortality events in wildlife can be indications of an emerging infectious disease. During the spring and summer of 2021, hundreds of dead passerines were reported across the eastern US. Birds exhibited a range of clinical signs including swollen conjunctiva, ocular discharge, ataxia, and nystagmus. As part of the diagnostic investigation, high...

Aging is characterized by the accumulation of amyloid and prion-like proteins. However, the molecular mechanisms by which these proteins arise remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate that transcript errors generate amyloid and prion-like proteins in a wide variety of human cell types, including stem cells, brain organoids, and fully differentiated neu...

Molecular biology methods and technologies have advanced substantially over the past decade. These new molecular methods should be incorporated among the standard tools of planetary protection (PP) and could be validated for incorporation by 2026. To address the feasibility of applying modern molecular techniques to such an application, NASA conduc...

Background: As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, efforts to better understand SARS-CoV-2 viral shedding and transmission in both unvaccinated and vaccinated populations remain critical to informing public health policies and vaccine development. The utility of using RT-PCR cycle threshold values (CT values) as a proxy for infectious viral titers fro...

Accurate transcription is required for the faithful expression of genetic information. However, relatively little is known about the molecular mechanisms that control the fidelity of transcription, or the conservation of these mechanisms across the tree of life. To address these issues, we measured the error rate of transcription in five organisms...

DNA barcoding approaches have greatly increased our understanding of biodiversity on the planet, and metabarcoding is widely used for classifying members of the phylum Nematoda. However, loci typically utilized in metabarcoding studies are often unable to resolve closely related species or are unable to recover all taxa present in a sample due to i...

Introduction South Asian refugees experience a high risk of obesity and diabetes yet are often underrepresented in studies on chronic diseases and their risk factors. The gut microbiota and gut permeability, as assessed through circulating lipopolysaccharide binding protein (LBP), may underlie the link between chronic inflammation and type 2 diabet...

Lake Hillier is a hypersaline lake known for its distinctive bright pink color. The cause of this phenomenon in other hypersaline sites has been attributed to halophiles, Dunaliella , and Salinibacter , however, a systematic analysis of the microbial communities, their functional features, and the prevalence of pigment-producing-metabolisms has not...

Nine bacterial strains isolated from the root nodules of Alnus incana were sequenced to determine their potential roles in plant health. The selected bacterial isolates belonged to the genera Bacillus, Herbaspirillum, Pantoea, Paenibacillus, and Rothia. Here, we report the draft genome sequences.

Metagenomic analysis of stone microbiome from samples collected in New England, USA and Tamil Nadu, India identified numerous Actinobacteria including Geodermatphilaceae. A culture-dependent approach was performed as a companion study with this culture-independent metagenomic analysis of these stone samples and resulted in the isolation of eleven G...

Tidal marshes are among the most valuable, productive, and vulnerable ecosystems with high biodiversity. Louisiana’s saltmarshes are endangered by natural and man-made stressors, including oil pollution, saltwater intrusion, and land loss due to sea level rise and erosion. Freshwater diversions have been planned to restore sediment input from the M...

Tradeoffs in microbial functional traits have been a focus of recently described ecological frameworks and of mathematical models of microbial community functioning. Tradeoffs in key traits such as growth rate, growth yield, resource acquisition, and stress tolerance may have either a genetic basis or a physiological basis, and the type of tradeoff...

Strain San01, isolated from an ant-nest found in the tea estate of Darjeeling, India, was the subject of polyphasic taxonomic studies. Phylogenetic studies based on multilocus sequence analysis ( atpK , gyrA , ftsZ , dnaK and secA ) showed that isolate San01 forms a separate branch within the genus Streptomyces with Streptomyces avermitilis MA-4680...

Background Lake Hillier is a hypersaline lake known for its distinctive bright pink color. The cause of this phenomenon in other hypersaline sites has been attributed to halophiles, Dunaliella , and Salinibacter , however, a systematic analysis of the microbial communities, their functional features, and the prevalence of pigment-producing-metaboli...

Accurate transcription is required for the faithful expression of genetic information. Surprisingly though, little is known about the molecular mechanisms that control the fidelity of transcription, or the conservation of these mechanisms across the tree of life. To address this issue, we measured the error rate of transcription in five organisms o...

High-throughput DNA sequencing studies allow rapid and widescale investigations into complex assemblages of organisms that would otherwise remain infeasible. Recently scientists have begun to apply metagenomic sequencing (sequencing of the complete pool of DNA from a sample) to investigate microscopic animal communities. Mitochondrial genomes are a...

The Northern high latitudes are warming twice as fast as the global average, and permafrost has become vulnerable to thaw. Changes to the environment during thaw leads to shifts in microbial communities and their associated functions, such as greenhouse gas emissions. Understanding the ecological processes that structure the identity and abundance...

Motivation Reproducibility is of central importance to the scientific process. The difficulty of consistently replicating and verifying experimental results is magnified in the era of big data, in which bioinformatics analysis often involves complex multi-application pipelines operating on terabytes of data. These processes result in thousands of p...

Members of the actinomycete genus Frankia form a nitrogen-fixing symbiosis with 8 different families of actinorhizal plants. We report a 5.57-Mbp draft genome sequence for Frankia sp. strain CcI6, a salt-tolerant nitrogen-fixing actinobacterium isolated from root nodules of Casurina cunninghamiana grown in Egyptian soils.

Frankia sp. strains CgS1, CcI156 and CgMI4 were isolated from Casuarina glauca and C. cunninghamiana nodules. Here, we report the 5.26-, 5.33-and 5.20-Mbp draft genome sequences of Frankia sp. strains CgS1, CcI156 and CgMI4, respectively. Analysis of the genome revealed the presence of high numbers of secondary metabolic biosynthetic gene clusters.

Frankia sp. strain BMG5.11, which was isolated from Elaeagnus angustifolia nodules, is able to infect other actinorhizal plants, including Elaeagnaceae, Rhamnaceae, Colletieae, Gymnostoma, and Myricaceae Here, we report the 11.3-Mbp draft genome sequence of Frankia sp. strain BMG5.11, with a G+C content of 69.9% and 9,926 candidate protein-encoding...

One of the major challenges of the microbiome studies is unavailability of a reliable preservative media for long term storage of microbes that maintains the cellular structure and integrity without causing partial lysis or cellular leakage. Such a preservative would allow for many downstream analyses without compromising DNA and RNA quality. To al...

Mutation and recombination are the primary sources of genetic variation. To better understand the evolution of genetic variation, it is crucial to comprehensively investigate the processes involving mutation accumulation and recombination. In this study, we performed mutation accumulation (MA) experiments on four heterozygous diploid yeast species...

Frankia sp. strain B2 was isolated from Casuarina cunninghamiana nodules. Here, we report the 5.3-Mbp draft genome sequence of Frankia sp. strain B2 with a G+C content of 70.1 % and 4,663 candidate protein-encoding genes. Analysis of the genome revealed the presence of high numbers of secondary metabolic biosynthetic gene clusters.

Here, we report the draft genome sequences obtained for 10 bacterial strains isolated from root nodules of Alnus trees. These members of the nodule microbiome were sequenced to determine their potential functional roles in plant health. The selected strains belong to the genera Rhodococcus , Kocuria , Rothia , Herbaspirillum , Streptomyces , and Th...

Abstract The role of species divergence due to ecologically based divergent selection—or ecological speciation—in generating and maintaining biodiversity is a central question in evolutionary biology. Comparison of the genomes of phylogenetically related taxa spanning a selective habitat gradient enables discovery of divergent signatures of selecti...

Here, we report 10 bacterial strains isolated from an abandoned coal mine in southeast Kansas to determine their potential for bioremediation through comparison of the genome sizes and distribution patterns of unique metabolic genes. The selected strains belong to the genera Arthrobacter , Jeotgalibacillus , Kocuria , Microbacterium , Pantoea , Rho...

Massively parallel sequencing technologies have made it possible to generate large quantities of sequence data. However, as research-associated information is transferred into clinical practice, cost and throughput constraints generally require sequence-specific targeted analyses. Therefore, sample enrichment methods have been developed to meet the...

Cas9/sgRNAs and Cas12a/crRNAs used in this study*. (DOCX)

qPCR probe sets used in this study*. (DOCX)

dCas9/sgRNA protects lambda DNA from exonuclease digestion. Gel electrophoresis of lambda DNA without or with exonuclease III and exonuclease VII treatment (lanes 1 and 2); lambda DNA with Cas9 complexed to Lambda F2 and Lambda R6 without or with exonuclease III and exonuclease VII (lane 3 and 4); lambda DNA with dCas9 complexed to Lambda F2 and La...

Agarose gel for Cas9/sgRNAs protection of a 10 kb human CFTR gene target shows complete exonuclease digestion. Gel electrophoresis showing human genomic DNA without or with exonuclease treatment (lanes 1 and 2), and human genomic DNA complexed with Cas9/sgRNAs CFTR F2 and CFTR R1 without or with exonuclease treatment (lanes 3 and 4). (TIF)

Alternative Negative Enrichment. (DOCX)

Cas12a/crRNA followed by extension with phosphorothioated nucleotides protects lambda DNA from exonuclease digestion. (A) Diagram of lambda genomic DNA shows the relative positions of complexes Cas12a/crRNA Lambda R1 and Cas12a-crRNA Lambda F2: (B) A 0.7% agarose gel shows lambda DNA filled in with wild-type dNTPs (lane 1), lambda DNA filled in wit...

Economic Comparison of sequencing costs of enriched versus unenriched samples. (DOCX)

Negative Enrichment using CRISPR nucleases. (TIF)

Exonuclease digests unprotected long lambda DNA. (A) Diagram showing intact lambda genomic DNA cos sites modified via polymerase incorporation of dGTP-αS modifications. (B) A 0.7% agarose gel shows lambda DNA filled in with wild-type dNTPs (lane 1), lambda DNA filled in with wild-type dNTPs and incubated with exonuclease III (lane 2), lambda DNA fi...

Background Although high-throughput marker gene studies provide valuable insight into the diversity and relative abundance of taxa in microbial communities, they do not provide direct measures of their functional capacity. Recently, scientists have shown a general desire to predict functional profiles of microbial communities based on phylogenetic...

Frankia sp. strain BMG5.30 was isolated from root nodules of a Coriaria myrtifolia seedling on soil collected in Tunisia and represents the second cluster 2 isolate. Frankia sp. strain BMG5.30 was able to re-infect C. myrtifolia generating root nodules. Here, we report its 5.8-Mbp draft genome sequence with a G + C content of 70.03% and 4509 candid...

Correction to:Communications Biology;https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-018-0119-2; published online: 14 August 2018. In the original published version of the article, the acknowledgements incorrectly omitted a statement acknowledging the availability ofpublic data through the authors’funding from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. This informati...

Millipedes may cause unexpected damage when they are introduced to new locations, becoming invaders that leave behind their old parasites and predators. Therefore, it was interesting to find numerous rhabditid nematodes within the gut of the invasive phytophagous millipede Chamberlinius hualienensis Wang, 1956 (Diplopoda, Paradoxosomatidae) from Ha...

Most of today's genome sequencing technology requires that genomes be sequenced in fragments. Typically, these fragments are then aligned using a variety of different alignment programs. All alignment tools query against a reference database to determine the most accurate reassembly of the original DNA strand's nucleotide sequence. Although these p...

Accurate assessments of biodiversity are crucial to advising ecosystem-monitoring programs and understanding ecosystem function. Nevertheless, a standard operating procedure to assess biodiversity accurately and consistently has not been established. This is especially true for meiofauna, a diverse community (>20 phyla) of small benthic invertebrat...

The role of species divergence due to ecologically-based divergent selection, or ecological speciation, in generating and maintaining biodiversity is a central question in evolutionary biology. Comparison of the genomes of phylogenetically related taxa spanning a selective habitat gradient enables discovery of divergent signatures of selection and...

Frankia sp. strain CcI49 was isolated from Casuarina cunninghamiana nodules. However the strain was unable to re-infect Casuarina, but was able to infect other actinorhizal plants including Elaeagnaceae. Here, we report the 9.8-Mbp draft genome sequence of Frankia sp. strain CcI49 with a G+C content of 70.5 % and 7,441 candidate protein-encoding ge...

The genus Mesorhizobium contains many species that are able to form nitrogen-fixing nodules on plants of the legume family. Here, we report the draft genome sequences for three Mesorhizobium strains. The genome sizes of strains LCM 4576, LCM 4577, and ORS3428 were 7.24, 7.02, and 6.55 Mbp, respectively.

Accurate transcription is required for the faithful expression of genetic information. To understand the molecular mechanisms that control the fidelity of transcription, we used novel sequencing technology to provide the first comprehensive analysis of the fidelity of transcription in eukaryotic cells. Our results demonstrate that transcription err...

Photorhabdus temperata strain Hm is an entomopathogenic bacterium that forms a symbiotic association with Heterorhabditis nematodes. Here, we report a 5.0-Mbp draft genome sequence for P. temperata strain Hm with a G+C content of 44.1% and containing 4,226 candidate protein-encoding genes.

Abstract Background: Metabarcoding studies allow a wide variety of taxa to be analysed simultaneously in a fraction of the time taken by morphological identification, but currently metabarcoding studies must rely on sequence similarity-based methodologies to delimit operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Similarity-based OTU clustering methodologies c...

Background: Metabarcoding studies allow a wide variety of taxa to be analysed simultaneously in a fraction of the time taken by morphological identification, but currently metabarcoding studies must rely on sequence similarity-based methodologies to delimit operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Similarity-based OTU clustering methodologies can lead t...

Nematodes are an abundant and diverse interstitial component of sedimentary habitats that have been reported to serve as important bioindicators. Though the 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DWH) disaster occurred 60 km offshore in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) at a depth of 1525 m, oil rose to the surface and washed ashore, subjecting large segments of coastline...

Frankia sp. strain Cc1.17 is a member of the Frankia lineage 3, the organisms of which are able to reinfect plants of the Eleagnaceae, Rhamnaceae, and Myricaceae families and the genera Gynmnostoma and Alnus . Here, we report the 8.4-Mbp draft genome sequence, with a G+C content of 72.14% and 6,721 candidate protein-coding genes.

Frankia sp. strain KB5 was isolated from Casuarina equisetifolia and previous studies have shown both nitrogenase and uptake hydrogenase activities under free-living conditions. Here, we report 5.5-Mbp draft genome sequence with a G+C content of 70.03 %, 4,958 candidate protein-encoding genes, and 2 rRNA operons.

The Journal of Nematology now offers publication of Nematode Genome Announcements (NGA) and Nematode Transcriptome Announcements (NTA). These brief reports announce the sequencing and assembly of a nematode genome or transcriptome resource, along with basic technical information on DNA sequencing and bioinformatic methods used. This publishing init...

The genus Rhizobium contains many species that are able to form nitrogen-fixing nodules on plants of the legume family. Here, we report the 5.5-Mb draft genome sequence of the salt-tolerant Rhizobium sp. strain LCM 4573, which has a G+C content of 61.2% and 5,356 candidate protein-encoding genes.

Here, we present draft genome sequences for three atypical Frankia strains (lineage 4) that were isolated from root nodules but are unable to reinfect actinorhizal plants. The genome sizes of Frankia sp. strains EUN1h, BMG5.36, and NRRL B16386 were 9.91, 11.20, and 9.43 Mbp, respectively.

The genus Rhizobium contains many species able to form nitrogen-fixing nodules on plants of the legume family. Here, we report the 6.9-Mbp draft genome sequence of Rhizobium sp. strain RSm-3, with a G+C content of 61.4% and 6,511 candidate protein-coding genes.

The genus Ensifer (formerly Sinorhizobium ) contains many species able to form nitrogen-fixing nodules on plants of the legume family. Here, we report the 6.1-Mb draft genome sequence of Ensifer sp. strain LCM 4579, with a G+C content of 62.4% and 5,613 candidate protein-encoding genes.

The Extreme Microbiome Project (XMP) is a project launched by the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities Metagenomics Research Group (ABRF MGRG) that focuses on whole genome shotgun sequencing of extreme and unique environments using a wide variety of biomolecular techniques. The goals are multifaceted, including development and refinement...

Comparing genomes of closely related genotypes from populations with distinct demographic histories can help reveal the impact of effective population size on genome evolution. For this purpose, we present a high-quality genome assembly of Daphnia pulex (PA42), and compare this with the first sequenced genome of this species (TCO), which was derive...

Motivation: Whole metagenome shotgun sequencing is a powerful approach for assaying the functional potential of microbial communities. We currently lack tools that efficiently and accurately align DNA reads against protein references, the technique necessary for constructing a functional profile. Here, we present PALADIN—a novel modification of the...

Studies monitoring changes in genetic diversity and composition through time allow a unique understanding of evolutionary dynamics and persistence of natural populations. However, such studies are often limited to species with short generation times that can be propagated in the laboratory or few exceptional cases in the wild. Species that produce...

As one of the few cellular traits that can be quantified across the tree of life, DNA-replication fidelity provides an excellent platform for understanding fundamental evolutionary processes. Furthermore, because mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation, clarifying why mutation rates vary is crucial for understanding all areas of bi...

Fungi dominate the microbial biomass of temperate forest soils and are a key driver of ecosystem nutrient cycling. Chronic nitrogen (N) amendments frequently cause the accumulation of soil organic matter within soils, suggesting that elevated N disrupts decomposition by altering fungal communities. To link previously observed increases in soil orga...