Understanding microbial communities and their functions by meta-omics approaches

Abstract:

In the post-genomic era, the exponential progress in sequencing technology evidently reduced the cost of sequencing. Meta-omics technology includes metagenomics, metatranscripteomics and metaproteomics, has emerged in this progress, which has promoted the in-depth study of the diversity, construction and potential functions of microbial communities. Lately, the dynamic changes and metabolic functions of microbial communities can be comprehensively analyzed with the integrated application of meta-omics, and this is becoming a new research trend of microbial ecology. This paper summarized latest advances and successful application using meta-omics technology to study of structure and function of microbe communities in various environments, such as ocean, lakes, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, human gut, bovine rumen, soil and compost.

Key words:meta-omics, microbial communities, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics