Summary
This Nature Biotechnology review synthesises shotgun metagenomics as a transformative approach to characterise unculturable microbial communities in complex environmental and health-related samples. The authors examine computational strategies for both assembly and mapping-based profiling, highlighting remaining challenges in high-complexity samples and organisms with limited genomic reference data, whilst noting potential biotechnological applications in therapeutics and strain-level characterisation.
Regional applicability
As a methodological review without geographic specificity, the shotgun metagenomics frameworks discussed are applicable globally, including to United Kingdom research on soil, gut, and environmental microbiomes. Uptake and application depend on local laboratory capacity and computational infrastructure.
Key measures
Sequencing technologies, computational pipelines for assembly and mapping, microbial community composition and function
Outcomes reported
The paper reviews shotgun metagenomics approaches for characterising diverse microbial communities in environmental and human health contexts. It discusses assembly-based and mapping-based profiling methods and their computational challenges.
Supporting research
Corrected Nature review abstract outlines shotgun-metagenomics sampling/analysis methods. An exact primary2023 soil-metagenome study cites this review as the assembly/binning methodological source and applies the workflow to forest soil, documenting an external soil-method link.
Limits: Original review body behind subscription; its abstract, corrected change history and external soil application were reviewed. Corrigendum8December2017 restores financial interests and publication date12September2017; it is not a retraction. No soil outcome or full methodological certification.
Topic tags
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