DOE JGI Helps Define Standards for Genomes from Uncultivated Microorganisms

More than a century after the Industrial Revolution, advances in DNA sequencing technologies have caused similarly dramatic shifts in scientific research, and one aspect is studying the planet’s biodiversity. One critical term that needs standardization is “metadata,” defined simply as “data about other data.” In Nature Biotechnology, an international team led by DOE JGI researchers has developed standards for the minimum metadata to be supplied with single amplified genomes (SAGs) and metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) submitted to public databases. Read more on the DOE JGI website.