Progress in next generation sequencing (NGS) combined with genetic statistical model in microbial molecular ecology

Abstract

In recent years, the emergence of next generation sequencing (NGS) makes it possible to obtain the data of microbial genome accurately in a short period of time, and it has become a powerful tool for microbial molecular ecology research. NGS has the advantage of non-sequence dependence and it can simultaneously detect nearly all culturable and non-culturable microorganisms which have high or low contents. With the explosion of sequencing data generated by NGS and multi-omics techniques, there is a growing need for the powerful genetic statistical models to generate meaningful hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying biological interaction. In this paper, we mainly discuss the application and prospect of NGS combined with the genetic statistical models in microbial molecular ecology. The combination of the two in promoting the study of microbial interspecific interaction is discussed. Then we analyze the application of the combination in the study of bacterial phenotypic plasticity. Finally, we describe its application in constructing gene regulatory network of microbe-plant interaction, which aims to identify key genes to enhance the disease resistance of plants.