title: Combining "omics" strategies to analyze the biotechnological potential of complex microbial environments.
abstract: It is well established in the scientific literature that only a small fraction of microorganisms can be cultured by conventional microbiology methods. The ever cheaper and faster DNA sequencing methods, together with advances in bioinformatics, have improved our understanding of the structure and functional behavior of microbial communities in many complex environments. However, the metagenomics approach alone cannot elucidate the functionality of all microorganisms, because a vast number of potentially new genes have no homologs in public databases. Metatranscriptomics and metaproteomics are approaches based on different techniques and have recently emerged as promising techniques to describe microbial activities within a given environment at the molecular level. In this review, we will discuss current developments and applications of metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and metaproteomics, and their limitations in the study of microbial communities. The combined analysis of genes, mRNA and protein in complex microbial environments will be key to identify novel biological molecules for biotechnological purposes.
authors: Universidade de Brasília - UnB, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas - Departamento de Biologia Celular, Laboratório de Enzimologia, CEP 700910-900 Brasília, DF, Brazil. kruger@unb.br.
authors: Alinne Pereira
authors: AP
authors: de Castro
authors: Maria Regina Silveira
authors: MR
authors: Sartori da Silva
authors: Betania Ferraz
authors: BF
authors: Quirino
authors: Ricardo Henrique
authors: RH
authors: Kruger
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001709:Biotechnology; D019295:Computational Biology; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D006801:Humans; D054892:Metagenome / Q000235:genetics; D020543:Proteome / Q000032:analysis* / Q000235:genetics*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D020543:Proteome