Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA; email:
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
Annu Rev Genet. 2021 Nov 23;55:633-659. doi: 10.1146/annurev-genet-071719-020506. Epub 2021 Sep 23.
Natural history collections are invaluable repositories of biological information that provide an unrivaled record of Earth's biodiversity. Museum genomics-genomics research using traditional museum and cryogenic collections and the infrastructure supporting these investigations-has particularly enhanced research in ecology and evolutionary biology, the study of extinct organisms, and the impact of anthropogenic activity on biodiversity. However, leveraging genomics in biological collections has exposed challenges, such as digitizing, integrating, and sharing collections data; updating practices to ensure broadly optimal data extraction from existing and new collections; and modernizing collections practices, infrastructure, and policies to ensure fair, sustainable, and genomically manifold uses of museum collections by increasingly diverse stakeholders. Museum genomics collections are poised to address these challenges and, with increasingly sensitive genomics approaches, will catalyze a future era of reproducibility, innovation, and insight made possible through integrating museum and genome sciences.
自然历史藏品是具有无法估量价值的生物信息库，为地球生物多样性提供了无与伦比的记录。利用传统博物馆和低温保存藏品开展的博物馆基因组学研究，以及支持这些研究的基础设施，尤其增强了对生态学和进化生物学、灭绝生物研究以及人为活动对生物多样性影响的研究。然而，利用基因组学研究生物藏品也暴露出一些挑战，例如对藏品数据进行数字化、整合和共享；更新实践，以确保从现有和新藏品中广泛提取最佳数据；以及使藏品实践、基础设施和政策现代化，以确保博物馆藏品能够被越来越多样化的利益攸关方公平、可持续且在基因组层面上加以利用。博物馆基因组学藏品有望应对这些挑战，并随着越来越敏感的基因组学方法的出现，通过整合博物馆学和基因组科学，推动未来一个可再现、创新和有深刻见解的时代的到来。
