Special Issue on‘‘Metagenomics of Marine Environments’’

We are pleased to announce a special issue on‘‘Metagenomics of Marine Environments’’of the journalGenomics,Proteomics&Bioinformatics(GPB),aiming to provide a platform for high-quality papers focusing on the topic and we invite submissions for this special issue(to be published in the fall of 2015).

With most microbes being difficult or impossible to culture,metagenomic approaches based on culture-independent genomic sequencing provide the first real insight of the magnitude and diversity of microbial life that remains largely uncharted.The first metagenomic study of surface water of the Sargasso Sea revealed roughly 1800 species of microbes found in these samples,with 150 new bacterial species and over 1.2 million new genes.The astounding number of genes found in these samples suggests that microbial life in the ocean is far more abundant and diverse than one would expect.The ocean covers more than 70%of the Earth surface and its microbial bioactivity is critical for sustaining life on Earth.This necessitates obtaining deeper understanding of the ocean’s partially explored microbes,their communities and biological activities.Metagenomics is now considered the main avenue for unlocking the potential of this huge diversity of unculturable microbes,understanding of microbial population dynamics as well as discovering new enzymes and bioactive molecules from marine and other environments.Rapid advance and decreased cost of sequencing by the next generation sequencing(NGS)technologies has allowed the metagenomic approaches to be widely used in many disciplines including ecology,agriculture,medicine and biotechnology,but many challenges remain to be resolved.This special issue of GPB is intended to provide an overview of advances and new developments in metagenomics research focused on marine environments.We encourage topics that use and discuss A)novel computational and statistical methods,tools and resources for metagenomics data analysis,B)address the imposing challenges in metagenomics and technologies and protocols that build on the existing metagenomic capacities,C)integrate multiple-omics approaches for deeper insights from metagenomics data,as well as D)diverse applications in metagenomics of marine environments including identification of novel enzymes and bioactive compounds.

Dr.Vladimir Bajicfrom King Abdullah University of Science and Technology,Saudi Arabia andDr.Fangquing Zhaofrom Beijing Institute of Life Sciences,Chinese Academy of Sciences are Guest Editors of this issue.We welcome submissions related but not limited to:

? Omicstechnologies for marine environmentalsamples (metagenomics,metatranscriptomics,metaproteomics,etc.)

? Metagenome

? Marine microbial ecology

? Methods and techniques for metagenomics data analysis

? Tools and resources for metagenomic analysis

? Bioactive compounds

Original studies,reviews,methods,application notes and reports on tools and resources,etc.are all welcome.The portfolio will be open for incoming manuscripts untilAugust 31,2015.

Manuscripts should be submitted online at http://ees.elsevier.com/gpb/.The Guide for Authors is available on the website.Please indicate that the submission is for this special issue.

For further information,please contact us:

Dr.Vladimir Bajic(vladimir.bajic@kaust.edu.sa);

Dr.Fangqing Zhao(zhfq@mail.biols.ac.cn);

Editorial Office(editor@big.ac.cn).