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Minireview Termites in the woodwork Samuel Chaffron and Christian von Mering Address: Institute of Molecular Biology and Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland. Correspondence: Christian von Mering. Email: mering@molbio.uzh.ch Published: 22 November 2007 Genome Biology 2007, 8:229 (doi:10.1186/gb-2007-8-11-229) The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at /2007/8/11/229 © 2007 BioMed Central Ltd Abstract Termites eat and digest wood, but how do they do it? Combining advanced genomics and proteomics techniques, researchers have now shown that microbes found in the termites hindguts possess just the right tools. Most animals, from insects to mammals, carry complex A comprehensive inventory communities of microbes in their digestive tracts. In the As recently as 2004, biologists had rather limited case of wood-eating termites, these gut microbes are experimental options for taking stock of uncultured particularly important: they are thought to provide most of microbes in their natural environments. They could analyze the capabilities needed for efficient digestion of wood, selected phylogenetic marker genes to assess taxonomic which is otherwise a largely inaccessible food source. They identity (using in situ hybridization or PCR-based also help to compensate for the paucity of some nutrients sequencing), or they could use expression cloning to screen in wood, for example by fixing atmospheric nitrogen, and for genes encoding a specific activity of interest. Another they synthesize essential am