title: Exploring prokaryotic diversity in the genomic era.
abstract: Our understanding of prokaryote biology from study of pure cultures and genome sequencing has been limited by a pronounced sampling bias towards four bacterial phyla - Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes - out of 35 bacterial and 18 archaeal phylum-level lineages. This bias is beginning to be rectified by the use of phylogenetically directed isolation strategies and by directly accessing microbial genomes from environmental samples.
authors.affiliation: ComBinE group, Advanced Computational Modelling Centre, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia. philiph@nature.berkeley.edu
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hugenholtz
mesh_terms: D039903:Actinobacteria / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D001438:Bacteroidaceae / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D005798:Genes, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics*; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics*; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D006094:Gram-Positive Bacteria / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D010802:Phylogeny; D020560:Proteobacteria / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification