Introduction to Genetic, Genomic, and System Analyses for Communities

Abstract

Complex microbial ecosystems represent unique challenges to understanding, especially with regard to the complex metabolic relationships that define the network of interactions that define the systems ecology of an environment. Utilizing a wealth of available techniques we can now explore the genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic components of this system, with each component providing a window into a stage of the network of interactions. Using these techniques we are just starting to map and validate the mechanisms of catabolism, anabolism, and metabolite cross talk that enable microorganisms to sense and interact with their environment. Translating this information into useful knowledge is the next major challenge, with the end goal of producing models that can capture the variance and complexity of these systems to faithfully reproduce observed characteristics of an ecosystem. We will explore some of these techniques and tools in this section.