Defining the evolutionary relationships between groups of organisms is a major part of modern-day microbiology. With the continuing dramatic increase in the availability of genomic data, these techniques have been extended to describing an all-encompassing "tree of life". However, identifying the location of the root of this tree corresponding to the most recent common ancestor is a challenging and distinct problem that has yet to be solved. To date, many investigations have proposed various roots, using a wide diversity of biological data and techniques. A survey of the most promising of these models illustrates the difficulty faced in reaching a scientific consensus on the issue, as well as the additional philosophical complications posed by our emerging understanding of the role of horizontal gene transfer in genome evolution read more ...

from Molecular Phylogeny of Microorganisms by Aharon Oren and R. Thane Papke (2010)

References

• Molecular Phylogeny of Microorganisms
• Lab-on-a-Chip Technology
• Real-Time PCR: Current Technology and Applications
• Environmental Molecular Microbiology
• Metagenomics

Labels: Tree of Life