Facts

... that should perhaps be more appreciated regarding bacteria, genomics and bioinformatics

Bacteria

Not all are bad. The vast majority of bacteria in our world are harmless to humans, and many are beneficial.

Life on earth would not function without bacteria. Bacteria provide many needed nutrients for our survival and the survival of other animals and plants.

Bacteria on our bodies can actually protect us from disease. We are covered with "friendly" bacteria (called our "normal flora") that tend to take up "space" on our skin and in our gut, making it more difficult for disease-causing bacteria to gain a foothold on us and cause a harmful infection. Our first exposure to such friendly bacteria at birth provides our new immune system with important early exposure to bacteria, so our bodies can learn to control them.

Amazing but true! The average adult person is estimated to contain more bacterial cells than human cells! (The lowest estimate of bacterial cells is higher than the highest estimate of human cells). A rough estimate of the number of different bacterial genes inside us (based on the estimated number of species, and assuming ~2000 genes per species) is more than the highest estimate for the number of human genes in the human genome. We would do well to learn more about the bacteria on and in us that are such a signficant part of us!

Harmful bacteria don't affect all people the same way. For this reason, it's often hard to tell whether something you did or took helped to make you better or kept you from getting a certain infection. This is why researchers often study large groups of people to determine if, on average, more people are helped by a certain treatment than another group of people given no such treatment.

Bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics, so that the antibiotic becomes unable to control the bug. Antibiotics must therefore be used exactly as prescribed (i.e. take all the pills - don't stop taking the medication just because you start to feel better).

Antibiotics can be effective against bacteria, but not viruses. Antibiotics do nothing to help a cold or flu and should only be used when really needed. Not only does such inappropriate use of antibiotics increase the risk of antibiotic resistance forming, but also antibiotics don't just kill harmful bacteria - they also kill some "friendly" bacteria on our body too. Therefore this disruption of the "friendly" bacteria (normal flora) can increase your risk of developing subsequent infections with other microbes that may not have otherwise have been able to infect us.

We have little understanding of our microbial world. We have traditionally been studying primarily those bacteria that we can grow in the laboratory, however it is now becoming apparent that there are many more bacteria on our bodies, and in the environment, that can not grow in traditional laboratory media used to grow microbes. These bacteria remain to be studied by other methods (such as analysis of their DNA sequence).

Genomics and Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is not that new. Ecologists, evolutionary theorists, and other biologists have long been using informatics to aid biological analysis. With the first sequencing of proteins in the late 40's, early 50's, and Margaret Dayhoff's Atlas of Protein Sequences in the early 70's, the foundation was set for bioinformatics as it's known today. The first complete genomes (of bacteriophages, which are viruses of bacteria) were sequenced in 1976-77.

Bacterial Genomics (with regard to analyzing complete genome sequences) is a very new field. The first bacterial genome was completely sequenced in 1995.

Bacterial Genomics is different in notable ways from most other Genomics fields (for example, human or plant genomics). Bacterial genomes are much smaller than animal and plant genomes, and so they can be sequenced more quickly. It is also easier to computationally identify the genes in bacterial genomes, and it is easier to disrupt and otherwise manipulate the genes to learn about their function. That doesn't mean that bacteria are less complex - bacterial genes are packed more closely together in their genome than, say, in the human genome, and the genes still appear to interact with each other in complex ways. However, as noted above, this is a very new field, and we are only beginning to understand how complex life really is.

Bacterial Genomics complements other microbiology fields. Genomics and bioinformatics are relatively "hot" fields right now, but they should be kept in context. They are a way of studying life that has its own benefits and disadvantages. They complement more traditional microbiology approaches to studying bacteria, which are still very necessary.

(For information about Bioinformatics in Canada, in particular bioinformatics researchers, programs, courses, events, and jobs, see Bioinformatics.ca and also the Canadian Bioinformatics Resource)

Bacterial Genomics 101

Don't understand what the heck a genome is? Go to a separate webpage that describes the basics for such items as a genome, genes, proteins ... and what bacterial genomics is generally all about. See also our "for the public" information.