Application of genomic analysis in Microbial Taxonomy

Abstract:

The science of bacterial taxonomy started in late 19th century. The main methods of bacterial classification were simply based on phenotypic markers and physiological-biochemical characteristics then. The appearance of DNA-DNA hybridization and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis brought a huge improvement to the field. However, recently, more and more studies have demonstrated that these approaches have some drawbacks. Fortunately, the emergence of the genomics technology has brought about novel concepts and insights into this area. This paper introduces the principle and application of five bacterial classification methods that are based on whole genome data, including average nucleotide identity analysis, core genome analysis, maximal unique matches index analysis, K-string composition vector method and genomic fluidity analysis.