Taxonomic asignation using non-16 region (nosZ)

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1

Hi colleagues. I'm reviewing an article claiming taxonomic assignation was made using amplicon data from a nitrogen oxide reductase (nosZ) amplicons using sklearn and the Greengenes database. Is this possible? Do you know any pipeline for this?

2

Hello,
Now I am also curious.
I would say that it is impossible. Greengenes is 16S rRNA gene database and there is no possibility to use nosZ amplicons for taxonomy assignment.

I can only think about next possibilities:

  1. Authors made an error in M&M section
  2. Authors used both 16S and NosZ amplicons.
  3. Authors "predicted" nosZ sequences based on 16S amplicons. For example, assigned taxonomy based on 16S sequences versus greengenes database and extracted nosZ sequences from genomes of assigned bacteria.
  4. Here my imagination end up.

Best,

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