Jonathan Eisen is soliciting opinions on finishing microbial genomes at his Tree of Life blog. For a project he is working on, he is addressing the question of what the benefits are to finishing a microbial genome. Some thoughts he throws out there include aesthetics, better analysis of the organization of the genome, and gene discovery. In the comments to his blog, his readers say the benefits depend on the genome. Commenter David says that “It really depends on where the gaps are” and Morgan Price adds that “the biggest issue with incomplete genomes is that you cannot be 100% sure that some function or gene is absent.”
Also, you those of you keeping track, Eisen has given out a new “Worst New Omics” award. This one goes to “predatosome,” mentioned in a PLoS One paper from Nottingham University researchers. The authors define the term as a group of genes that are “predatorily specific.”