Metagenomics, which is regarded as analyses of genes obtained directly from environment, is a revolution in microbiology. Traditionally, microbiological study is very much dependent on cultivating microorganisms. Metagenomics not only enables the research of uncultured microbes, but also enables the research of interactions among microorganisms sharing a same environment and the whole microbial community in situ. With the rapid development of sequencing technology, plenty of sequenced metagenomic data spring up, and call for more efficient methods for analysis. Metagenomics and some key problems in this field were introduced , especially the community comparison problem. Various approaches that are widely used to address this problem are reviewed here, and recommendations on how to choose a suitable method are given.%宏基因组学是一门研究直接来自环境的基因材料的新兴学科.传统的微生物学研究,依赖于实验室培养,而宏基因组学,使得对这些未被培养或不可培养的微生物的研究成为可能,也为同一环境中微生物之间相互作用的研究,以及微生物群落的整体研究,指明了新的方向.随着测序技术的迅速发展,大量宏基因组测序数据不断产生,对新的统计分析方法提出了更高的要求.简要介绍了宏基因组学以及其中的几个重要问题,主要针对其中基于测序数据的群落比较问题进行论述,介绍了多种现今常用的统计计算方法,并分析了它们的适用情况.
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