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Are multi-omics enough?

Nature Microbiology volume 1, Article number: 16101 (2016) Cite this article

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Multi-omic techniques are often seen as the future of microbiome studies. We argue that recent strategies for simplifying complex omic-derived data will need to be combined with improved cultivation techniques to pave the way towards a more targeted approach for understanding microbial communities.

In 1665, Robert Hooke was the first human to observe a microorganism. Two centuries elapsed between these first sightings of microbial cells and the isolation of bacterial species in pure culture with artificial media. The identification and study of microbial species relied then on their cultivation and phenotypic characterization for centuries, even though it was soon discovered that only ∼1% of the microorganisms present in environmental samples were cultivable1. In 2002, the birth of metagenomic sequencing facilitated an explosion of microbiome studies, enabling much of a microbial community to be identified in a single experiment. A few years later, other omic technologies arose (metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, meta-metabolomics, etc.) to complement metagenomics, expanding the landscape of tools available for the high-throughput analysis of complex biomes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cristina Vilanova and Manuel Porcar are at the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio, University of Valencia-CSIC), the Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology and Darwin Bioprospecting Excellence, SL, Universitat de València, postal code 22085, València, 46071, Spain

    Cristina Vilanova & Manuel Porcar

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  1. Cristina Vilanova
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  2. Manuel Porcar
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Correspondence to Cristina Vilanova or Manuel Porcar.

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Vilanova, C., Porcar, M. Are multi-omics enough?. Nat Microbiol 1, 16101 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.101

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.101

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