Saturday, August 27, 2016

Improving Human Virome Studies: Updates to Virus Classification

The proposed phage proteomic tree by Rohwer and Edwards.
Taxonomy is an important aspect of microbiome research. Whether we are studying communities of bacteria, viruses, or other microbes, there are benefits to labeling microbes. Taxonomic names immediately give us information about their relationships to each other, such as similar bacteria being grouped into the same genus. Taxonomic identities also provide some information about an organism's functionality and/or clinical pathology. For example, by mentioning that a bacteria is a member of the genus Staphylococcus, you might think that it is a round, gram-positive bacterium that might inhabit the skin and is otherwise related to other members of that genus (including genomic relationships). In the end, the practice does what it aims to do, which is classify organisms in an informative way.