Institute of Plant Biology, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
J Proteomics. 2010 Oct 10;73(11):2054-63. doi: 10.1016/j.jprot.2010.08.002. Epub 2010 Aug 19.
Much of our knowledge on heredity, development, physiology and the underlying cellular and molecular processes is derived from the studies of model, or reference, organisms. Despite the great variety of life, a common base of shared principles could be extracted by studying a few life forms, selected based on their amenability to experimental studies. Very briefly, the origins of a few model organisms are described, including E. coli, yeast, C. elegans, Drosophila, Xenopus, zebrafish, mouse, maize and Arabidopsis. These model organisms were chosen because of their importance and wide use, which made them systems of choice for genome-wide studies. Many of their genomes were between the first to be fully sequenced, opening unprecedented opportunities for large-scale transcriptomics and proteomics studies.
我们关于遗传、发育、生理学以及基础细胞和分子过程的大部分知识都来源于模式生物或参考生物的研究。尽管生命形式多种多样，但通过研究少数几种根据其是否适合实验研究而选择的生命形式，可以提取出共同的基本原则基础。简要地说，描述了几种模式生物的起源，包括大肠杆菌、酵母、秀丽隐杆线虫、果蝇、非洲爪蟾、斑马鱼、小鼠、玉米和拟南芥。之所以选择这些模式生物，是因为它们的重要性和广泛应用，这使得它们成为全基因组研究的首选系统。其中许多生物的基因组是首批被完全测序的，为大规模转录组学和蛋白质组学研究开辟了前所未有的机会。
