Molecular Methods for Studying Microorganisms From Atypical Environments

Publication date: Available online 16 October 2018Source: Methods in MicrobiologyAuthor(s): Hirak Ranjan Dash, Surajit DasAbstractAdvanced molecular biology tools have unravelled the omnipresence of microbes in environments either in the form of cultivable or uncultivable fractions. However, research on microbial diversity in low biomass environments is still in its nascent stage. Microbial diversity of atypical environments has gained interest due to their adaptive features in extreme habitats, evolutionary and phylogenetic uniqueness, rich functional perspective and the presence of novel enzymes with biotechnological applications. Though culture-based techniques are still used for microbial diversity analysis, imitating the culture conditions of atypical environments is a great challenge. Thus, culture-independent techniques are applied in atypical microbial diversity analysis. Direct analysis of biological macromolecules such as nucleic acids, proteins and lipids from the atypical environments coupled with advanced techniques such as molecular fingerprinting, metagenomics, metaproteomics, metatranscriptomics and proteogenomics provide more insights into the structural and functional atypical microbial diversity. This chapter describes the advanced molecular biology tools that can be employed for microbial diversity analysis from atypical environments such as DNA fingerprinting techniques, microarray, next-generation sequencing, stable isotope probing, microautoradiography,...
Source: Methods in Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Source Type: research