What is metagenomics, and why do we need it?

Question

The title says it all – how does it differ from sequencing, why are we doing this, and why has this not been done from the very beginning?

In: 1

Answer 1

A genome is all the genes in one organism.
A metagenome is all the genes in multiple organisms.

That is for example important if you wanna know what ground bacteria do.

In a lump of dirt there are thousands of species of bacteria and microbes and stuff, isolating and analyzing every single one and then recreate how they may interact with each other is an impossible task.

But just throwing all the little fuckers in one pot and looking at the genes is possible and also tells you a lot.

So there are genes in there for turning sugar into acid, and others for turning acid into fertilizer?

Is that one bacteria doing both, or two species each doing one, or are there 15 different ones that all do the first step, 45 that do the second step and 12 that do both?

Too hard to find out, but we know now, that this environment has the ability to turn sugar into fertilizer. However exactly that’s happening.

Answer 2

A genome is all the genes in one organism.
A metagenome is all the genes in multiple organisms.

That is for example important if you wanna know what ground bacteria do.

In a lump of dirt there are thousands of species of bacteria and microbes and stuff, isolating and analyzing every single one and then recreate how they may interact with each other is an impossible task.

But just throwing all the little fuckers in one pot and looking at the genes is possible and also tells you a lot.

So there are genes in there for turning sugar into acid, and others for turning acid into fertilizer?

Is that one bacteria doing both, or two species each doing one, or are there 15 different ones that all do the first step, 45 that do the second step and 12 that do both?

Too hard to find out, but we know now, that this environment has the ability to turn sugar into fertilizer. However exactly that’s happening.