Department of Biogeography, University of Trier, 54296 Trier, Germany.
Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA-94720, USA.
Genes (Basel). 2019 Oct 29;10(11):858. doi: 10.3390/genes10110858.
We live in an era of unprecedented biodiversity loss, affecting the taxonomic composition of ecosystems worldwide. The immense task of quantifying human imprints on global ecosystems has been greatly simplified by developments in high-throughput DNA sequencing technology (HTS). Approaches like DNA metabarcoding enable the study of biological communities at unparalleled detail. However, current protocols for HTS-based biodiversity exploration have several drawbacks. They are usually based on short sequences, with limited taxonomic and phylogenetic information content. Access to expensive HTS technology is often restricted in developing countries. Ecosystems of particular conservation priority are often remote and hard to access, requiring extensive time from field collection to laboratory processing of specimens. The advent of inexpensive mobile laboratory and DNA sequencing technologies show great promise to facilitate monitoring projects in biodiversity hot-spots around the world. Recent attention has been given to portable DNA sequencing studies related to infectious organisms, such as bacteria and viruses, yet relatively few studies have focused on applying these tools to Eukaryotes, such as plants and animals. Here, we outline the current state of genetic biodiversity monitoring of higher Eukaryotes using Oxford Nanopore Technology's MinION portable sequencing platform, as well as summarize areas of recent development.
我们生活在生物多样性空前丧失的时代，这影响了全球生态系统的分类组成。高通量 DNA 测序技术 (HTS) 的发展极大地简化了量化人类对全球生态系统影响的艰巨任务。DNA 代谢组学等方法使我们能够以前所未有的细节研究生物群落。然而，基于 HTS 的生物多样性探索的现行方案存在几个缺点。它们通常基于短序列，具有有限的分类和系统发育信息含量。在发展中国家，获得昂贵的 HTS 技术往往受到限制。具有特殊保护优先级的生态系统通常偏远且难以进入，需要从野外采集到实验室处理标本的大量时间。廉价的移动实验室和 DNA 测序技术的出现有望促进世界各地生物多样性热点地区的监测项目。最近，人们对与细菌和病毒等传染性生物体有关的便携式 DNA 测序研究给予了关注，但相对较少的研究关注将这些工具应用于真核生物，如植物和动物。在这里，我们概述了使用 Oxford Nanopore Technology 的 MinION 便携式测序平台对高等真核生物进行遗传生物多样性监测的现状，并总结了最近的发展领域。
