CoproID predicts the source of coprolites and paleofeces using microbiome composition and host DNA content

Borry, Maxime; Cordova, Bryan; Perri, Angela; Wibowo, Marsha; Honap, Tanvi Prasad; Ko, Jada; Yu, Jie; Britton, Kate; Girdland-Flink, Linus; Power, Robert C.; Stuijts, Ingelise; Salazar-Garcia, Domingo C.; Hofman, Courtney; Hagan, Richard; Kagone, Therese Samdapawinde; Meda, Nicolas; Carabin, Helene; Jacobson, David; Reinhard, Karl; Lewis, Cecil; Kostic, Aleksandar; Jeong, Choongwon; Herbig, Alexander; Huebner, Alexander und Warinner, Christina (2020): CoproID predicts the source of coprolites and paleofeces using microbiome composition and host DNA content. In: Peerj, Bd. 8, e9001

Abstract

Shotgun metagenomics applied to archaeological feces (paleofeces) can bring new insights into the composition and functions of human and animal gut microbiota from the past. However, paleofeces often undergo physical distortions in archaeological sediments, making their source species difficult to identify on the basis of fecal morphology or microscopic features alone. Here we present a reproducible and scalable pipeline using both host and microbial DNA to infer the host source of fecal material. We apply this pipeline to newly sequenced archaeological specimens and show that we are able to distinguish morphologically similar human and canine paleofeces, as well as non-fecal sediments, from a range of archaeological contexts.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Kulturwissenschaften > Department für Kulturwissenschaften und Altertumskunde
• Themengebiete: 900 Geschichte und Geografie > 900 Geschichte
• ISSN: 2167-8359
• Sprache: Englisch