Latin American biodiversity and perspectives to study it using 'omics' technologies

Abstract

Latin America is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. The countries of the region are home to more than 70% of the planet's species, in a territory that does not reach 10% of the terrestrial biosphere. In this review, we will discuss the availability of new techniques for the massive analysis of this biodiversity, with sequencing technologies and bioinformatics analysis. Scientists have never had the number of tools available today, allowing them to find genes related to improvements in crop productivity, metabolic pathways of compounds of industrial interest, species resilience to climate change, and genes of adaptability to biotic and abiotic stress, among other applications. Although there are advances in the sequencing and analysis of genomes of certain groups of organisms in Latin America, it is essential that the region develop projects with alliances between countries to accelerate scientific findings and include studies on new 'omics' and bioinformatics technologies for the massive analysis of the thousand-unexplored species that we still have in our territories.