What is Metagenomics?
In the Simplest definition, it is the study of total genetic material recovered directly from environmental samples allowing us to study Microbial communities in their natural habitats without any necessity of isolating pure cultures as in culture dependent techniques.
"Metagenomics" is a 2 words phrase "Meta" and "Genomics", while Genomics is obtaining DNA sequences, the word "Meta" added here indicates you will be expecting to sequence a multi community sample. in other word you will target any genetic material that is present in your environmental sample.
Why Metagenomics?
Both Traditional microbiology and microbial genomic sequencing used to rely mainly on culturing and incubation, these same approaches has revealed a vast gap in our perspective to the microbial world, back when early environmental gene sequencing cloned specific genes called 16srRNA genes and produced a diversity profile of natural samples has lead to undeniable conclusion that the vast majority of microbial biodiversity had been missed through these years of research.
Metagenomics has become the appropriate tool to study microbes residing in an environmental sample (water, soil or Biological tissues) as a whole, detecting the total microorganisms present in that sample without missing out uncultivable species; an anomaly which limited classical culture methods (Standard plating techniques) to a known specie level.
