TY - JOUR A1 - Favet, J. A1 - Lapanje, A. A1 - Giongo, A. A1 - Kennedy, S. A1 - Aung, Y.-Y. A1 - Cattaneo, A. A1 - Davis-Richardson, A.G. A1 - Brown, C.T. A1 - Kort, R. A1 - Brumsack, H.-J. A1 - Schnetger, B. A1 - Chappell, A. A1 - Kroijenga, J. A1 - Beck, A. A1 - Schwibbert, Karin A1 - Mohamed, A.H. A1 - Kirchner, T. A1 - Dorr de Quadros, P. A1 - Triplett, E.W. A1 - Broughton, William J. A1 - Gorbushina, Anna T1 - Microbial hitchhikers on intercontinental dust: catching a lift in Chad N2 - Ancient mariners knew that dust whipped up from deserts by strong winds travelled long distances, including over oceans. Satellite remote sensing revealed major dust sources across the Sahara. Indeed, the Bodélé Depression in the Republic of Chad has been called the dustiest place on earth. We analysed desert sand from various locations in Chad and dust that had blown to the Cape Verde Islands. High throughput sequencing techniques combined with classical microbiological methods showed that the samples contained a large variety of microbes well adapted to the harsh desert conditions. The most abundant bacterial groupings in four different phyla included: (a) Firmicutes—Bacillaceae, (b) Actinobacteria—Geodermatophilaceae, Nocardiodaceae and Solirubrobacteraceae, (c) Proteobacteria—Oxalobacteraceae, Rhizobiales and Sphingomonadaceae, and (d) Bacteroidetes—Cytophagaceae. Ascomycota was the overwhelmingly dominant fungal group followed by Basidiomycota and traces of Chytridiomycota, Microsporidia and Glomeromycota. Two freshwater algae (Trebouxiophyceae) were isolated. Most predominant taxa are widely distributed land inhabitants that are common in soil and on the surfaces of plants. Examples include Bradyrhizobium spp. that nodulate and fix nitrogen in Acacia species, the predominant trees of the Sahara as well as Herbaspirillum (Oxalobacteraceae), a group of chemoorganotrophic free-living soil inhabitants that fix nitrogen in association with Gramineae roots. Few pathogenic strains were found, suggesting that African dust is not a large threat to public health. KW - Aeolian KW - High throughput sequencing KW - Bodélé Depression KW - Republic of Chad KW - Wind erosion PY - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2012.152 SN - 1751-7362 SN - 1751-7370 VL - 7 SP - 850 EP - 867 PB - Nature Publishing Group CY - Basingstoke AN - OPUS4-28083 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Giongo, A. A1 - Favet, J. A1 - Lapanje, A. A1 - Gano, K.A. A1 - Kennedy, S. A1 - Davis-Richardson, A.G. A1 - Brown, C. A1 - Beck, A. A1 - Farmerie, W.G. A1 - Cattaneo, A. A1 - Crabb, D.B. A1 - Aung, Y.-Y. A1 - Kort, R. A1 - Brumsack, H.-J. A1 - Schnetger, B. A1 - Broughton, William J. A1 - Gorbushina, Anna A1 - Triplett, E.W. T1 - Microbial hitchhikers on intercontinental dust: high-throughput sequencing to catalogue microbes in small sand samples N2 - Microbiological studies on the intercontinental transport of dust are confounded by the difficulty of obtaining sufficient material for analysis. Axenic samples of dust collected at high altitudes or historic specimens in museums are often so small and precious that the material can only be sacrificed when positive results are assured. With this in mind, we evaluated current methods and developed new ones in an attempt to catalogue all microbes present in small dust or sand samples. The methods used included classical microbiological approaches in which sand extracts were plated out on a variety of different media, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based amplification of 16S/18S rRNA sequences followed by construction of clone libraries, PCR amplification of 16S rRNA sequences followed by high-throughput sequencing (HtS) of the products and direct HtS of DNA extracted from the sand. A representative sand sample collected at Bahaï Wadi in the desert of the Republic of Chad was used. HtS with or without amplification showed the most promise and can be performed on ≤100 ng DNA. Since living microbes are often required, current best practices would involve geochemical and microscopic characterisation of the sample, followed by DNA isolation and direct HtS. Once the microbial content of the sample has been deciphered, growth conditions (including media) can be tailored to isolate the micro-organisms of interest. KW - Chad KW - Deserts KW - Eukaryota KW - 16S amplicons KW - Metagenomics PY - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-012-9264-0 SN - 0393-5965 SN - 1573-3025 VL - 29 IS - 1 SP - 71 EP - 84 PB - Springer Science + Business Media B.V. CY - Dordrecht [u.a.] AN - OPUS4-27687 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - GEN A1 - Boehm, U. A1 - Nelson, G. A1 - Brown, C. M. A1 - Bagley, S. A1 - Bajcsy, P. A1 - Bischof, J. A1 - Dauphin, A. A1 - Dobbie, I. M. A1 - Eriksson, J. E. A1 - Faklaris, O. A1 - Fernandez-Rodriguez, J. A1 - Ferrand, A. A1 - Gelman, L. A1 - Gheisari, A. A1 - Hartmann, H. A1 - Kukat, C. A1 - Laude, A. A1 - Mitkovski, M. A1 - Munck, S. A1 - North, A. J. A1 - Rasse, T. M. A1 - Resch-Genger, Ute A1 - Schuetz, L. C. A1 - Seitz, A. A1 - Strambio-De-Castillia, C. A1 - Swedlow, J. R. A1 - Nitschke, R. T1 - Author correction: QUAREP-LiMi: a community endeavor to advance quality assessment and reproducibility in light microscopy N2 - This is a corrigendum to the original article "QUAREP-LiMi: a community endeavor to advance quality assessment and reproducibility in light microscopy" that was published in the journal "Nature methods", vol. 18 (2021), pp. 1424-1427. PY - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-021-01387-x SN - 1548-7105 SP - 1 PB - Nature Publishing Group CY - London AN - OPUS4-54270 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nelson, G. A1 - Boehm, U. A1 - Bagley, S. A1 - Bajcsy, P. A1 - Bischof, J. A1 - Brown, C. M. A1 - Dauphin, A. A1 - Dobbie, I. M. A1 - Eriksson, J. E. A1 - Faklaris, O. A1 - Fernandez-Rodriguez, J. A1 - Ferrand, A. A1 - Gelman, L, A1 - Gheisari, A. A1 - Hartmann, H. A1 - Kukat, C. A1 - Laude, A. A1 - Mitkovski, M. A1 - Munck, S. A1 - North, A. J. A1 - Rasse, T. A1 - Resch-Genger, Ute A1 - Schuetz, L. C. A1 - Seitz, A. A1 - Strambio-De-Castillia, C. A1 - Swedlow, J. R. A1 - Alexopoulos, I. A1 - Aumayr, K. A1 - Avilov, S. A1 - Bakker, G.-J. A1 - Bammann, R. R. A1 - Bassi, A. A1 - Beckert, H. A1 - Beer, S. A1 - Belyaev, Y. A1 - Bierwagen, J. A1 - Birngruber, K. A. A1 - Bosch, M. A1 - Breitlow, J. A1 - Cameron, L. A. A1 - Chalfoun, J. A1 - Chambers, J. J. A1 - Chen, C.-L. A1 - Conde-Sousa, E. A1 - Corbett, A. D. A1 - Cordelieres, F. P. A1 - Del Nery, E. A1 - Dietzel, R. A1 - Eismann, F. A1 - Fazeli, E. A1 - Felscher, A. A1 - Fried, H. A1 - Gaudreault, N. A1 - Goh, W. I. A1 - Guilbert, T. A1 - Hadleigh, R. A1 - Hemmerich, P. A1 - Holst, G. A. A1 - Itano, M. S. A1 - Jaffe, C. B. A1 - Jambor, H. K. A1 - Jarvis, S. C. A1 - Keppler, A. A1 - Kirchenbuechler, D. A1 - Kirchner, M. A1 - Kobayashi, N. A1 - Krens, G. A1 - Kunis, S. A1 - Lacoste, J. A1 - Marcello, M. A1 - Martins, G. G. A1 - Metcalf, D. J. A1 - Mitchell, C. A. A1 - Moore, J. A1 - Mueller, T. A1 - Nelson, M. S. A1 - Ogg, S. A1 - Onami, S. A1 - Palmer, A. L. A1 - Paul-Gilloteaux, P. A1 - Pimentel, J. A. A1 - Plantard, L. A1 - Podder, S. A1 - Rexhepaj, E. A1 - Royon, A. A1 - Saari, M. A. A1 - Schapman, D. A1 - Schoonderwoert, V. A1 - Schroth-Diez, B. A1 - Schwartz, S. A1 - Shaw, M. A1 - Spitaler, M. A1 - Stoeckl, M. T. A1 - Sudar, D. A1 - Teillon, J. A1 - Terjung, S. A1 - Thuenauer, R. A1 - Wilms, C. D. A1 - Wright, G. D. A1 - Nitschke, R. T1 - QUAREP-LiMi: A community-driven initiative to establish guidelines for quality assessment and reproducibility for instruments and images in light microscopy N2 - A modern day light microscope has evolved from a tool devoted to making primarily empirical observations to what is now a sophisticated, quantitative device that is an integral part of both physical and life science research. Nowadays, microscopes are found in nearly every experimental laboratory. However, despite their prevalent use in capturing and quantifying scientific phenomena, neither a thorough understanding of the principles underlying quantitative imaging techniques nor appropriate knowledge of how to calibrate, operate and maintain microscopes can be taken for granted. This is clearly demonstrated by the well-documented and widespread difficulties that are routinely encountered in evaluating acquired data and reproducing scientific experiments. Indeed, studies have shown that more than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to repeat another scientist’s experiments, while more than half have even failed to reproduce their own experiments1. One factor behind the reproducibility crisis of experiments published in scientific journals is the frequent underreporting of imaging methods caused by a lack of awareness and/or a lack of knowledge of the applied technique2,3. Whereas quality control procedures for some methods used in biomedical research, such as genomics (e.g., DNA sequencing, RNA-seq) or cytometry, have been introduced (e.g. ENCODE4), this issue has not been tackled for optical microscopy instrumentation and images. Although many calibration standards and protocols have been published, there is a lack of awareness and agreement on common Standards and guidelines for quality assessment and reproducibility5. In April 2020, the QUality Assessment and REProducibility for instruments and images in Light Microscopy (QUAREP-LiMi) initiative6 was formed. This initiative comprises imaging scientists from academia and industry who share a common interest in achieving a better understanding of the performance and limitations of microscopes and improved quality control (QC) in light microscopy. The ultimate goal of the QUAREP-LiMi initiative is to establish a set of common QC standards, guidelines, metadata models7,8, and tools9,10, including detailed protocols, with the ultimate aim of improving reproducible advances in scientific research. This White Paper 1) summarizes the major obstacles identified in the field that motivated the launch of the QUAREP-LiMi initiative; 2) identifies the urgent need to address these obstacles in a grassroots manner, through a community of Stakeholders including, researchers, imaging scientists11, bioimage analysts, bioimage informatics developers, corporate partners, Funding agencies, standards organizations, scientific publishers, and observers of such; 3) outlines the current actions of the QUAREPLiMi initiative, and 4) proposes future steps that can be taken to improve the dissemination and acceptance of the proposed guidelines to manage QC. To summarize, the principal goal of the QUAREP-LiMi initiative is to improve the overall quality and reproducibility of light microscope image data by introducing broadly accepted standard practices and accurately captured image data metrics. KW - Fluorescence KW - Microscopy KW - Quality assurance KW - Comparability KW - Imaging KW - Standards KW - Reference materials KW - Reliability KW - Data KW - Reference data KW - Biology KW - Medicine KW - Life science PY - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-530629 SN - 1365-2818 VL - 284 IS - 1 SP - 56 EP - 73 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford AN - OPUS4-53062 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Boehm, U. A1 - Nelson, G. A1 - Brown, C. M. A1 - Bagley, S. A1 - Bajcsy, P. A1 - Bischof, J. A1 - Dauphin, A. A1 - Dobbie, I. M. A1 - Eriksson, J. E. A1 - Faklaris, O. A1 - Fernandez-Rodriguez, J. A1 - Ferrand, A. A1 - Gelman, L. A1 - Gheisari, A. A1 - Hartmann, H. A1 - Kukat, C. A1 - Laude, A. A1 - Mitkovski, M. A1 - Munck, S. A1 - North, A. J. A1 - Rasse, T. M. A1 - Resch-Genger, Ute A1 - Schuetz, L. C. A1 - Seitz, A. A1 - Strambio-De-Castillia, C. A1 - Swedlow, J. R. A1 - Nitschke, R. T1 - QUAREP-LiMi: A community endeavor to advance quality assessment and reproducibility in light microscopy N2 - The community-driven initiative Quality Assessment and Reproducibility for Instruments & Images in Light Microscopy (QUAREP-LiMi) wants to improve reproducibility for light microscopy image data through Quality control (QC) management of instruments and images. It aims for a common set of QC guidelines for Hardware calibration and image acquisition, management and analysis. KW - Fluorescence KW - Microscopy KW - Quality assurance KW - Comparability KW - Imaging KW - Standards KW - Reference materials KW - Reliability KW - Data KW - Reference data KW - Biology KW - Medicine KW - Life science PY - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-021-01162-y SN - 1548-7105 VL - 18 SP - 1424 EP - 1427 PB - Nature Publishing Group CY - London AN - OPUS4-52722 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -