Fungal plastiphily and its link to generic virulence traits makes environmental microplastics a global health factor

Fungi comprise significant human pathogens, causing over a billion infections each year. Plastic pollution alters niches of fungi by providing trillions of artificial microhabitats, mostly in the form of microplastics, where pathogens might accumulate, thrive, and evolve. However, interactions between fungi and microplastics in nature are largely unexplored. To address this knowledge gap, we investigated the assembly, architecture, and ecology of mycobiomes in soil (micro)plastispheres near human dwellings in a model- and network-based metagenome study combined with a global-scale meta-analysis. Our results reveal a strong selection of important human pathogens, in an idiosyncratic, otherwise predominantly neutrally assembled plastisphere, which is strongly linked to generic fungal virulence traits. These findings substantiate our niche expansion postulate, demonstrate the emergence of plastiphily among fungal pathogens and imply the existence of a ‘plastisphere virulence school’, underpinning the need to declare microplastics as a factor of global health

Microplastics accumulate fungal pathogens in terrestrial ecosystems

Microplastic (MP) is a pervasive pollutant in nature that is colonised by diverse groups of microbes, including potentially pathogenic species. Fungi have been largely neglected in this context, despite their affinity for plastics and their impact as pathogens. To unravel the role of MP as a carrier of fungal pathogens in terrestrial ecosystems and the immediate human environment, epiplastic mycobiomes from municipal plastic waste from Kenya were deciphered using ITS metabarcoding as well as a comprehensive meta-analysis, and visualised via scanning electron as well as confocal laser scanning microscopy. Metagenomic and microscopic findings provided complementary evidence that the terrestrial plastisphere is a suitable ecological niche for a variety of fungal organisms, including important animal and plant pathogens, which formed the plastisphere core mycobiome. We show that MPs serve as selective artificial microhabitats that not only attract distinct fungal communities, but also accumulate certain opportunistic human pathogens, such as cryptococcal and Phoma-like species. Therefore, MP must be regarded a persistent reservoir and potential vector for fungal pathogens in soil environments. Given the increasing amount of plastic waste in terrestrial ecosystems worldwide, this interrelation may have severe consequences for the trans-kingdom and multi-organismal epidemiology of fungal infections on a global scale

Managing and publishing fungal community barcoding data by use of the process-oriented schema MOD-CO and a GFBio data publication pipeline

The need to fulfil FAIR guiding principles for data management and publication [1] directly affects researchers, i.e., data producers as well as data managers. Data management has to be set up well already at an early stage of the data life cycle. This is demonstrated by a best practice work- and dataflow 'Fungal community barcoding data', which has been established as side product in the context of the project 'GBOL 2 Mycology‘, German Barcode of Life initiative (https://www.bolgermany.de/). The work- and dataflow was set up by applying the newly published MOD-CO schema, Version 1.0 which has been implemented as an instance of the database application DiversityDescriptions for data management, and for making data compliant to GFBio infrastructure for data archiving and publication. The comprehensive conceptual schema MOD-CO for 'Meta-Omics Data of Collection Objects' Version 1.0 was published as Linked Open Data representation in spring 2018 [2]. The process-oriented schema describes operations and object properties along the work- and dataflow from gathering environmental samples, to the various transformation, transaction, and measurement steps in the laboratory up to sample and data publication and archiving. By supporting various kinds of relationships, the MOD-CO schema allows for the concatenation of individual records of the operational steps along a workflow. The MOD-CO descriptor structure in version 1.0 comprises 653 descriptors (concepts) and 1,810 predefined descriptor states, organised in 37 concept collections. The published version 1.0 is available as various schema representations of identical content (https://www.mod-co.net/wiki/Schema_Representations). This schema has been implemented as data structure in the relational database DiversityDescriptions (DWB-DD) (https://diversityworkbench.net/Portal/DiversityDescriptions), a generic component of the Diversity Workbench environment (https://diversityworkbench.net). DWB-DD is considered being appropriate to be applied as a LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System) and ELN (Electronic Laboratory Notebook) for organising Fungal community barcoding data' and similar data collections in molecular laboratories. Its data export interface provides guidance to generate data and metadata in the formats CSV and XML, the latter following the SDD metadata schema with involvement of extensions by metadata elements from EML and ABCD standards; for community standards see: https://gfbio.biowikifarm.net/wiki/Data_exchange_standards,_protocols_and_formats_relevant_for_the_collection_data_domain_within_the_GFBio_network. The research data themselves are organised according to the MOD-CO data schema. The data package of the work- and dataflow 'Fungal community barcoding data' is going to be submitted to GFBio after having been checked for GFBio compliance and to be published under a creative common license. Suggestions for standardized citation will be provided, a DOI assigned, and long-term data archiving ensured. KEYWORDS: DiversityDescriptions, German Barcode of Life (GBOL), German Federation for Biological Data (GFBio), MOD-CO conceptual schema, use case for community barcoding data REFERENCES: 1. Wilkinson, M.D. et al. 2016. The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. – Sci. Data 3: 160018. DOI: 10.1038/sdata.2016.18. 2. Rambold, G., Yilmaz, P., Harjes, J., Link, A., Glöckner, F.O., Triebel, D. 2018. MOD-CO schema – a conceptual schema for processing sample data in meta’omics research (version 1.0). http://mod-co.net/wiki/MOD-CO_Schema_Reference

FAIR data in meta-omics research: Using the MOD-CO schema to describe structural and operational elements of workflows from field to publication

Nucleic acid and protein sequencing-based analyses are increasingly applied to determine origin, identity and traits of environmental (biological) objects and organisms. In this context, the need for corresponding data structures has become evident. As existing schemas and community standards in the domains of biodiversity and molecular biological research are comparatively limited with regard to the number of generic and specific elements, previous schemas for describing the physical and digital objects need to be replaced or expanded by new elements for covering the requirements from meta-omics techniques and operational details. On the one hand, schemas and standards are hitherto mostly focussed on elements, descriptors, or concepts that are relevant for data exchange and publication, on the other hand, detailed operational aspects regarding origin context and laboratory processing, as well as data management details, like the documentation of physical and digital object identifiers, are rather neglected. The conceptual schema for Meta-omics Data and Collection Objects (MOD-CO; https://www.mod-co.net/) has been set up recently Rambold et al. 2019. It includes design elements (descriptors or concepts), describing structural and operational details along the work- and dataflow from gathering environmental samples to the various transformation, transaction, and measurement steps in the laboratory up to sample and data publication and archiving. The concepts are named according to a multipartite naming structure, describing internal hierarchies and are arranged in concept (sub-)collections. By supporting various kinds of data record relationships, the schema allows for the concatenation of individual records of the operational segments along a workflow (Fig. 1). Thus, it may serve as a logical and structural backbone for laboratory information management systems. The concept structure in version 1.0 comprises 653 descriptors (concepts) and 1,810 predefined descriptor states, organised in 37 concept (sub-)collections. The published version 1.0 is available as various schema representations of identical content (https://www.mod-co.net/wiki/Schema_Representations). A normative XSD (= XML Schema Definition) for the schema version 1.0 is available under http://schema.mod-o.net/MOD-CO_1.0.xsd. The MOD-CO concepts might be integrated as descriptor/element structures in the relational database DiversityDescriptions (DWB-DD) an open-source and freely available software of the Diversity Workbench (DWB; https://diversityworkbench.net/Portal/DiversityDescriptions; https://diversityworkbench.net). Currently, DWB-DD is installed at the Data Center of the Bavarian Natural History Collections (SNSB) to build an instance of its own for storing and maintaining MOD-CO-structured meta-omics research data packages and enrich them with ‘metadata’ elements from the community standards Ecological Markup Language (EML), Minimum Information about any (x) Sequence (MIxS), Darwin Core (DwC) and Access to Biological Collection Data (ABCD). These activities are achieved in the context of ongoing FAIR ('Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reuseable') biodiversity research data publishing via the German Federation for Biological Data (GFBio) network (https://www.gfbio.org/). Version 1.1 of the schema with extended collections of structural and operational design concepts is scheduled for 2020

Meta-omics data and collection objects (MOD-CO) : a conceptual schema and data model for processing sample data in meta-omics research

With the advent of advanced molecular meta-omics techniques and methods, a new era commenced for analysing and characterizing historic collection specimens, as well as recently collected environmental samples. Nucleic acid and protein sequencing-based analyses are increasingly applied to determine the origin, identity and traits of environmental (biological) objects and organisms. In this context, the need for new data structures is evident and former approaches for data processing need to be expanded according to the new meta-omics techniques and operational standards. Existing schemas and community standards in the biodiversity and molecular domain concentrate on terms important for data exchange and publication. Detailed operational aspects of origin and laboratory as well as object and data management issues are frequently neglected. Meta-omics Data and Collection Objects (MOD-CO) has therefore been set up as a new schema for meta-omics research, with a hierarchical organization of the concepts describing collection samples, as well as products and data objects being generated during operational workflows. It is focussed on object trait descriptions as well as on operational aspects and thereby may serve as a backbone for R&D laboratory information management systems with functions of an electronic laboratory notebook. The schema in its current version 1.0 includes 653 concepts and 1810 predefined concept values, being equivalent to descriptors and descriptor states, respectively. It is published in several representations, like a Semantic Media Wiki publication with 2463 interlinked Wiki pages for concepts and concept values, being grouped in 37 concept collections and subcollections. The SQL database application DiversityDescriptions, a generic tool for maintaining descriptive data and schemas, has been applied for setting up and testing MOD-CO and for concept mapping on elements of corresponding schema