Palys T, Nakamura L K, Cohan F M
Department of Biology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06459-0170, USA.
Int J Syst Bacteriol. 1997 Oct;47(4):1145-56. doi: 10.1099/00207713-47-4-1145.
All living organisms fall into discrete clusters of closely related individuals on the basis of gene sequence similarity. Evolutionary genetic theory predicts that in the bacterial world, each sequence similarity cluster should correspond to an ecologically distinct population. Indeed, surveys of sequence diversity in protein-coding genes show that sequence clusters correspond to ecological populations. Future population surveys of protein-coding gene sequences can be expected to disclose many previously unknown ecological populations of bacteria. Sequence similarity clustering in protein-coding genes is recommended as a primary criterion for demarcating taxa.
所有生物基于基因序列相似性都可归入关系密切的离散群体。进化遗传学理论预测，在细菌世界中，每个序列相似性群体都应对应一个生态上不同的种群。事实上，对蛋白质编码基因序列多样性的调查表明，序列群体与生态种群相对应。预计未来对蛋白质编码基因序列的种群调查将揭示许多以前未知的细菌生态种群。建议将蛋白质编码基因中的序列相似性聚类作为划分分类单元的主要标准。
