Institute for Environmental Genomics, Department of Botany and Microbiology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA.
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2012 Jun;23(3):460-6. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2011.12.021. Epub 2012 Jan 4.
Functional gene arrays (FGAs) have been considered as a specific, sensitive, quantitative, and high throughput metagenomic tool to detect, monitor and characterize microbial communities. Especially GeoChips, the most comprehensive FGAs have been applied to analyze the functional diversity, composition, structure, and metabolic potential or activity of a variety of microbial communities from different habitats, such as aquatic ecosystems, soils, contaminated sites, extreme environments, and bioreactors. FGAs are able to address fundamental questions related to global change, bioremediation, land use, human health, and ecological theories, and link the microbial community structure to environmental properties and ecosystem functioning. This review focuses on applications of FGA technology for profiling microbial communities, including target preparation, hybridization and data processing, and data analysis. We also discuss challenges and future directions of FGA applications.
功能基因芯片（FGAs）已被认为是一种特定的、敏感的、定量的和高通量的宏基因组工具，可用于检测、监测和描述微生物群落。特别是 GeoChips，这是最全面的 FGAs，已被应用于分析各种不同生境（如水生生态系统、土壤、污染场地、极端环境和生物反应器）中微生物群落的功能多样性、组成、结构、代谢潜力或活性。FGAs 能够解决与全球变化、生物修复、土地利用、人类健康和生态理论相关的基本问题，并将微生物群落结构与环境特性和生态系统功能联系起来。本综述重点介绍了 FGA 技术在微生物群落分析中的应用，包括靶标制备、杂交和数据处理以及数据分析。我们还讨论了 FGA 应用的挑战和未来方向。
