What can we learn from 16S rRNA surveys of environments? What are the limitation
ID: 73237 • Letter: W
Question
What can we learn from 16S rRNA surveys of environments? What are the limitations of this approach?
Please answer the above questons by specificlly relating them to the following ideas:
1.What do you know about a species if the only information you have about it is its 16S rRNA sequence? Can this tell you about its metabolism? Its preferred temperature? What other information would we need to learn to know what the species is or does? 2. is 16S alsways the best gene for figuring out evolutionary relationships?
Explanation / Answer
First of all 16S rRNA genes are used for classifying and identifying of bacteria. These genes are used extensively in inferring relationships among organisms, because these genes are universally present in all bacteria. 16S rRNA genes are conserved and have essential function, so they evolve slowly and mutations that occur in 16S rRNA sequence can be used to calculate the evolutionary distance between species.
No, getting the information about 16S rRNA only cannot reveal about an organism’s metabolism and its preferred temperature.