Thompson Luke R, Sanders Jon G, McDonald Daniel, Amir Amnon, Ladau Joshua, Locey Kenneth J, Prill Robert J, Tripathi Anupriya, Gibbons Sean M, Ackermann Gail, Navas-Molina Jose A, Janssen Stefan, Kopylova Evguenia, Vázquez-Baeza Yoshiki, González Antonio, Morton James T, Mirarab Siavash, Zech Xu Zhenjiang, Jiang Lingjing, Haroon Mohamed F, Kanbar Jad, Zhu Qiyun, Jin Song Se, Kosciolek Tomasz, Bokulich Nicholas A, Lefler Joshua, Brislawn Colin J, Humphrey Gregory, Owens Sarah M, Hampton-Marcell Jarrad, Berg-Lyons Donna, McKenzie Valerie, Fierer Noah, Fuhrman Jed A, Clauset Aaron, Stevens Rick L, Shade Ashley, Pollard Katherine S, Goodwin Kelly D, Jansson Janet K, Gilbert Jack A, Knight Rob
Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences and Northern Gulf Institute, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA.
Nature. 2017 Nov 23;551(7681):457-463. doi: 10.1038/nature24621. Epub 2017 Nov 1.
Our growing awareness of the microbial world's importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth's microbial diversity.
我们对微生物世界的重要性和多样性的认识日益加深，这与我们对其基本结构的有限理解形成了鲜明对比。尽管DNA测序最近取得了进展，但缺乏标准化方案和通用分析框架阻碍了不同研究之间的比较，妨碍了对地球上微生物生命进行全球推断的发展。在此，我们对数百名研究人员为地球微生物组计划收集的微生物群落样本进行了荟萃分析。协调一致的方案和新的分析方法，特别是使用精确序列而非聚类的操作分类单元，使得细菌和古菌核糖体RNA基因序列能够在多项研究中得到追踪，并让我们以前所未有的规模探索多样性模式。结果既是一个为DNA序列数据提供全球背景的参考数据库，也是一个纳入未来研究数据的框架，有助于越来越全面地描绘地球微生物多样性。
