Open AccessSystemic approaches to biodegradation
Author(s) -
Trigo Almudena,
Valencia Alfonso,
Cases Ildefonso
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
fems microbiology reviews
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.91
H-Index - 212
eISSN - 1574-6976
pISSN - 0168-6445
DOI - 10.1111/j.1574-6976.2008.00143.x
Subject(s) - metagenomics , biodegradation , biochemical engineering , categorization , process (computing) , computational biology , genomics , biology , abiotic component , organism , data science , computer science , microbiology and biotechnology , engineering , ecology , artificial intelligence , genetics , genome , gene , operating system
Biodegradation, the ability of microorganisms to remove complex chemicals from the environment, is a multifaceted process in which many biotic and abiotic factors are implicated. The recent accumulation of knowledge about the biochemistry and genetics of the biodegradation process, and its categorization and formalization in structured databases, has recently opened the door to systems biology approaches, where the interactions of the involved parts are the main subject of study, and the system is analysed as a whole. The global analysis of the biodegradation metabolic network is beginning to produce knowledge about its structure, behaviour and evolution, such as its free‐scale structure or its intrinsic robustness. Moreover, these approaches are also developing into useful tools such as predictors for compounds' degradability or the assisted design of artificial pathways. However, it is the environmental application of high‐throughput technologies from the genomics, metagenomics, proteomics and metabolomics that harbours the most promising opportunities to understand the biodegradation process, and at the same time poses tremendous challenges from the data management and data mining point of view.