Department of Biological Sciences, Institute for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844-3051, USA.
Brief Bioinform. 2012 Jul;13(4):420-9. doi: 10.1093/bib/bbr080. Epub 2012 Feb 4.
This article reviews recent advances in 'microbiome studies': molecular, statistical and graphical techniques to explore and quantify how microbial organisms affect our environments and ourselves given recent increases in sequencing technology. Microbiome studies are moving beyond mere inventories of specific ecosystems to quantifications of community diversity and descriptions of their ecological function. We review the last 24 months of progress in this sort of research, and anticipate where the next 2 years will take us. We hope that bioinformaticians will find this a helpful springboard for new collaborations with microbiologists.
本文回顾了“微生物组研究”方面的最新进展：分子、统计和图形技术，以探索和量化微生物如何影响我们的环境和自身，鉴于测序技术的最新进展。微生物组研究不仅仅局限于特定生态系统的清单，而是扩展到对群落多样性的量化和生态功能的描述。我们回顾了过去 24 个月在这类研究中的进展，并预测未来两年的发展方向。我们希望生物信息学家能够将这一进展作为与微生物学家开展新合作的有益起点。
