Horizontal gene transfer. This challenges the whole idea of a hierarchy of biological classification. Many bacteria have been cloned and studied in isolation, especially those responsible for the disease. However, a new field, metagenomics, deals with the entire complement of living things in an environmental sample, allowing us to address questions about interspecies interaction in the ‘real world’. Sources include ocean water, soil, and the human gut (Human Microbiome.
No comments:
Post a Comment