New standard for describing marker genes

The Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC), an international community of scientists, published a new standard for describing marker genes with their Minimum Information about an ENvironmental Sequence (MIENS). Published online on 11/16/10 in Nature Precedings (Yilmaz et al), the paper is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/npre.2010.5252.2.

The goal of the Genomics Standards Consortium is to promote standardisations of the description of genomes and the exchange and integration of genomic data. With the development of the MIENS specification, GSC’s goal has been extended to marker genes.

The adoption of phylogenetic marker genes as molecular proxies for tracking and cataloguing the diversity of microorganisms has revolutionised the way we view the biological world and provided us with insights into how life has evolved and how different organisms are genetically related to each other.

The paper defines all of the different phylogenetic and functional genes (or gene fragments) as ‘marker genes’ as they are used to profile natural genetic diversity across the Tree of Life. With powerful next-generation sequencing, the GSC is revising standards for new marker genes to add contextual data for epidemiology and health studies to monitor the origins and regional spreading of pandemics and to study the variation of the human microbiota.

A specific focus of the extended requirements are the sets of measurements and observations describing particular habitats, termed ‘environmental packages’. By adopting MIENS - ‘living checklists’ - scientists are enhancing our ability to analyse natural genetic diversity across the Tree of Life as it is currently being documented.