美国麻省理工学院Martin F. Polz团队的一项最新研究，提出了一种基于微生物种群生物学定义的反向生态学方法。这一研究成果于2019年8月9日发表在国际顶尖学术期刊《细胞》上。

该团队介绍了一种以最近基因流为度量的方法，当应用于共生微生物时，它可以从近亲中识别出由强基因流不连续作用分离出来的同源基因和生态单元。开发出可以识别不同生态单元下的基因组区域来指示不同的进化方向，并将序列与环境变化或寄主相关进行关联分析。利用这种反向生态学的方法，课题组人员发现人类的共生细菌瘤胃球菌会分类成明显的种群，这些种群与健康和疾病有着不同的关联。以通过最近基因流动来定义种群的这种方式，将有助于利用为动植物开发的生态和进化理论来分析细菌和古细菌基因组，从而探讨不同生物体内共有的规律。

据介绍，在微生物学中，界定具有生态意义的不同种群，对于确定微生物在环境和宿主相关微生物群系中的作用非常重要。

附：英文原文

Title: A Reverse Ecology Approach Based on a Biological Definition of Microbial Populations

Author: Philip Arevalo, David VanInsberghe, Joseph Elsherbini, Jeff Gore, Martin F. Polz

Issue&Volume: Volume 178 Issue 4

Abstract: Delineating ecologically meaningful populations among microbes is important for identifying their roles in environmental and host-associated microbiomes. Here, we introduce a metric of recent gene flow, which when applied to co-existing microbes, identifies congruent genetic and ecological units separated by strong gene flow discontinuities from their next of kin. We then develop a pipeline to identify genome regions within these units that show differential adaptation and allow mapping of populations onto environmental variables or host associations. Using this reverse ecology approach, we show that the human commensal bacterium Ruminococcus gnavus breaks up into sharply delineated populations that show different associations with health and disease. Defining populations by recent gene flow in this way will facilitate the analysis of bacterial and archaeal genomes using ecological and evolutionary theory developed for plants and animals, thus allowing for testing unifying principles across all biology.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2019.06.033

Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(19)30736-6