Tringe Susannah Green, Rubin Edward M
Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, 2800 Mitchell Drive, Walnut Creek, California 94598, USA.
Nat Rev Genet. 2005 Nov;6(11):805-14. doi: 10.1038/nrg1709.
Although genomics has classically focused on pure, easy-to-obtain samples, such as microbes that grow readily in culture or large animals and plants, these organisms represent only a fraction of the living or once-living organisms of interest. Many species are difficult to study in isolation because they fail to grow in laboratory culture, depend on other organisms for critical processes, or have become extinct. Methods that are based on DNA sequencing circumvent these obstacles, as DNA can be isolated directly from living or dead cells in various contexts. Such methods have led to the emergence of a new field, which is referred to as metagenomics.
尽管传统上基因组学专注于纯净、易于获取的样本，比如在培养中易于生长的微生物或大型动植物，但这些生物体仅代表了人们感兴趣的现存或曾经存在的生物体的一小部分。许多物种难以单独进行研究，因为它们无法在实验室培养中生长，在关键过程中依赖其他生物体，或者已经灭绝。基于DNA测序的方法克服了这些障碍，因为DNA可以在各种情况下直接从活细胞或死细胞中分离出来。这些方法催生了一个新的领域，即宏基因组学。
