Published at Trends in Ecology and Evolution
The others: our biased perspective of eukaryotic genomes
Javier del Campo, Michael E. Sieracki, Robert Molestina, Patrick Keeling, Ramon Massana, Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo
Understanding the origin and evolution of the eukaryotic cell and the full diversity of eukaryotes is relevant to many biological disciplines. However, our current understanding of eukaryotic genomes is extremely biased, leading to a skewed view of eukaryotic biology. We argue that a phylogeny-driven initiative to cover the full eukaryotic diversity is needed to overcome this bias. We encourage the community: (i) to sequence a representative of the neglected groups available at public culture collections, (ii) to increase our culturing efforts, and (iii) to embrace single cell genomics to access organisms refractory to propagation in culture. We hope that the community will welcome this proposal, explore the approaches suggested, and join efforts to sequence the full diversity of eukaryotes.
Media coverage
- GenomeWeb: Don’t forget about this guys
- Science Media Center of Canada: Genomics is ignoring microscopic “others”
- io9: The One Cognitive Bias That’s Holding Back Genetic Research
- phys.org: ‘Charismatic’ organisms still dominating genomics research
- Science News: The tree of life gets a makeover
- reddit Biology: The others: our biased perspective of eukaryotic genomes (via Cell)
- EFE Futuro (Spanish): Más de la mitad de los grupos de eucariotas no tienen ninguna especie con el genoma secuenciado
