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Omic research in termites: an overview and a roadmap
Many recent breakthroughs in our understanding of termite biology have been facilitated by “omics” research. Omic science seeks to collectively catalog, quantify, and characterize pools of biological molecules that translate into structure, function, and life processes of an organism. Biological mol...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2015
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4358217/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25821456 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2015.00076 |
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author | Scharf, Michael E. |
author_facet | Scharf, Michael E. |
author_sort | Scharf, Michael E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Many recent breakthroughs in our understanding of termite biology have been facilitated by “omics” research. Omic science seeks to collectively catalog, quantify, and characterize pools of biological molecules that translate into structure, function, and life processes of an organism. Biological molecules in this context include genomic DNA, messenger RNA, proteins, and other biochemicals. Other permutations of omics that apply to termites include sociogenomics, which seeks to define social life in molecular terms (e.g., behavior, sociality, physiology, symbiosis, etc.) and digestomics, which seeks to define the collective pool of host and symbiont genes that collaborate to achieve high-efficiency lignocellulose digestion in the termite gut. This review covers a wide spectrum of termite omic studies from the past 15 years. Topics covered include a summary of terminology, the various kinds of omic efforts that have been undertaken, what has been revealed, and to a degree, what the results mean. Although recent omic efforts have contributed to a better understanding of many facets of termite and symbiont biology, and have created important new resources for many species, significant knowledge gaps still remain. Crossing these gaps can best be done by applying new omic resources within multi-dimensional (i.e., functional, translational, and applied) research programs. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4358217 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-43582172015-03-27 Omic research in termites: an overview and a roadmap Scharf, Michael E. Front Genet Genetics Many recent breakthroughs in our understanding of termite biology have been facilitated by “omics” research. Omic science seeks to collectively catalog, quantify, and characterize pools of biological molecules that translate into structure, function, and life processes of an organism. Biological molecules in this context include genomic DNA, messenger RNA, proteins, and other biochemicals. Other permutations of omics that apply to termites include sociogenomics, which seeks to define social life in molecular terms (e.g., behavior, sociality, physiology, symbiosis, etc.) and digestomics, which seeks to define the collective pool of host and symbiont genes that collaborate to achieve high-efficiency lignocellulose digestion in the termite gut. This review covers a wide spectrum of termite omic studies from the past 15 years. Topics covered include a summary of terminology, the various kinds of omic efforts that have been undertaken, what has been revealed, and to a degree, what the results mean. Although recent omic efforts have contributed to a better understanding of many facets of termite and symbiont biology, and have created important new resources for many species, significant knowledge gaps still remain. Crossing these gaps can best be done by applying new omic resources within multi-dimensional (i.e., functional, translational, and applied) research programs. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-03-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4358217/ /pubmed/25821456 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2015.00076 Text en Copyright © 2015 Scharf. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Genetics Scharf, Michael E. Omic research in termites: an overview and a roadmap |
title | Omic research in termites: an overview and a roadmap |
title_full | Omic research in termites: an overview and a roadmap |
title_fullStr | Omic research in termites: an overview and a roadmap |
title_full_unstemmed | Omic research in termites: an overview and a roadmap |
title_short | Omic research in termites: an overview and a roadmap |
title_sort | omic research in termites: an overview and a roadmap |
topic | Genetics |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4358217/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25821456 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2015.00076 |
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