Guest Comment: Environmental Genomics Focus Issue

摘要

Genome science is already witnessing the second revolution in its still short lifetime: the introduction of next-generation sequencing technologies. These new technologies, of which four major platforms are presently in use, can generate so much nudeotide sequence data so rapidly and at such low costs that application to species outside the standard genetic models becomes feasible. In the early days of genomics, attention was mostly focused on the full genome sequences of a few model organisms ("yeast, fly, worm, and weed"). Now, only 10 years after closing the genome sequence of the nematode C. elegans (November 2002), genome sequencing of "genetically naive" organisms, even with large genomes, is no longer limiting biological analysis. For example, a genome sequence for the giant panda was published in 2010; this was the first complex genome to be assembled de novo exclusively from next-generation sequencing data.