Genome Biologyis thrilled to have published a number of high-quality research articles in 2016. This list highlights just a few of the editors’ favorite articles published this year. We have no doubt that there will be a lot of great research to come throughout 2017 and beyond.

Evolutionary Genomics

With the assembly of the leopard genome, we learned that you really are what you eat.比较草食动物，食肉动物和杂食动物的基因组showed distinct genomic changes associated with dietary specialization.

TheAsian longhorned beetle genomeshed light on the evolutionary success of beetles, in this case caused by the amplification and functional divergence of genes used for feeding on plants originating from fungi and bacteria.

We also got some insights into the evolution of innate immune response from researchers studying the OAS locus in Neanderthals. Turns out,introgression from Neanderthals into humans may have impacted human immunity.

表观基因组学

Researchers in the UK investigated alternative methylation,giving us the first体内profiling of5-formylcytosine. This methylation mark is associated with enhancers involved in tissue development.

我们也得到了一个在癌症中普遍加速的表观遗传钟，显示细胞表观遗传年龄与癌症风险之间的相关性。

InBlood lipids influence DNA methylation in circulating cells, we learned that alterations in DNA methylation can occur as a consequence of a disease-related phenotype.

Technological Advances

We saw一种高敏感，具有成本效益的更新方法，用于单细胞芯片条形码. The method was used to detect gene expression changes during the progression of the cell cycle.

我们也得到了a method for compressing genome information, making it small enough to do large, cross-dataset comparisons, allowing for rapid phylogenetic construction, selecting appropriate reference genomes for read mapping, and identifying low quality samples.

A scan of publications in leading genomics journals found that五分之一的论文具有基因名称错误, prompting editors and researchers around the world to consider the downsides of using Microsoft Excel for gene lists. This was one of our most talked-about articles of 2016!

Plant Genomics

InWidespread natural variation of DNA methylation within angiosperms, the high amount of variation in DNA methylation across 34 diverse angiosperm species was revealed.

Researchers at the University of Torontoused an interesting approach to identify new receptors used in plant innate immunity, first using genomic screens to find pathogen effectors and then reverse genetic screens to find the cognate immune receptors in the host plant.

A new method forrapid gene isolation using mutant chromosome sequencingallows reduction in the complexity of the large genomes of wheat and barley, giving us the opportunity to find genes associated with specific traits.

疾病基因组学

We also found out that粪便微生物组的可遗传部分与人类内脏脂肪有关.Specifically three human genes that affect the abundance of certain species in the microbiome, pointing to a potential role for these genes in mediating the link between the fecal microbiome and obesity.

Researchers in China found anaspirin-induced lncRNA-mediated与滑稽可笑的途径ancer effects in colorectal cancer cells, shedding light onto the chemoprotective mechanisms of aspirin use.

A gene regulatory analysis found a稀有和普通癫痫之间的遗传重叠，提出了治疗癫痫的潜在新治疗靶标。

The integration of 4C-seq analysis and GWAS providednew insights into complex disorders, finding a number of novel candidate genes, pathways, and regulators in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease.