The concept of a gene has been developed a lot since the Mendelian era owing to the rapid progress in molecular biology and informatics. To explore the nature of life, varieties of biological tools have been continuously established. Many achievements have been made to clarify the relationships between genotypes and phenotypes. However, it is still not completely clear that how traits of an organism are encoded by its genome. In this review, we will summarize and discuss representative works in systematical functional genomic studies in microbes. By analyzing their developmental progressions and limitations, we may have chances to design more powerful means to decipher the code of life.

由于分子生物学和信息学的快速进步，自孟德尔时代以来，基因的概念得到了大量发展。为了探索生命的本质，不断建立各种生物工具。在阐明基因型和表型之间的关系方面取得了许多成就。然而，生物体的特征如何由其基因组编码仍不完全清楚。在这篇综述中，我们将总结和讨论微生物系统功能基因组研究的代表性工作。通过分析它们的发展进程和局限性，我们可能有机会设计出更强大的方法来破译生命密码。