Table 1. The comparison of properties of taxonomical and functional analyses for metagenomic samples.
Features | Taxonomical analysis | Functional analysis |
Input data types | Pyro-sequencing or shotgun sequencing data | shotgun sequencing data |
Basic object sequences | 16S rRNA sequences | Gene sequences |
Reference databases | GreenGenes, RDP, Silva, etc. | NCBI NR, SEED. etc. |
Basic results | Taxonomy structure (Qualitative and quantitative) | Functional hierarchy (Qualitative) |
Extended results | Sample taxonomical structure comparison | Sample functional composition comparison, Functional and pathway enrichment |
Applications | Novel strain identification | Gene discovery |