metagenome の meta- の名付けの由来

metagenome という用語は 1998 年に Jo Handelsmanl et al., (1998) Molecular biological access to the chemistry of unknown soil microbes: a new frontier for natural products, Chemistry & Biology, 5:R245-249 で次のように導入されました：

A new frontier of science is emerging that unites biology and chemistry-the exploration of natural products from previously uncultured soil microorganisms. The approach involves directly accessing the genomes of soil organisms that cannot be, or have not been, cultured by isolating their DIVA, cloning it into culturable organisms and screening the resultant clones for the production of new chemicals. The excitement surrounding this new field lies in the vast diversity of unknown soil microflora and the chemical rich- ness that they are thought to contain. The methodology has been made possible by advances in molecular biology and eukaryotic genomics, which have laid the groundwork for cloning and functional analysis of the collective genomes of soil microflora, which we term the metagenome of the soil.

これを読めば metagenome の操作的な意味は理解できるのですが、なぜ、metagenome という名前にしたのか由来をご存知でしょうか。カンファレンスやほかの文献での解説があれば知りたいです。

meta- はメタデータならデータのデータのように、ある概念の高次から論じるときにつかわれるので、そこから考えると、genomeのomics という意味での metagenome かなと推測しています。

参照

• Metagenomics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia