Marine microbial metagenomics: progress and prospect

Preliminary statistics showed that there are more than one million species of microbes in marine environments that formed a dynamic genetic reservoir, among which the majority are not revealed and categorized due to barrier in cultivation techniques. However, the situation has changed in recent year...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inWei sheng wu hsüeh pao Vol. 47; no. 3; p. 548
Main Authors Li, Xiang, Qin, Ling, Dai, Shi-kun, Jiang, Shu-mei, Liu, Zhi-heng
Format Journal Article
LanguageChinese
Published China 01.06.2007
Subjects
Bacteria - genetics
Bacteria - isolation & purification
Biodiversity
Cloning, Molecular
Genome, Bacterial
Seawater - microbiology
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Summary:Preliminary statistics showed that there are more than one million species of microbes in marine environments that formed a dynamic genetic reservoir, among which the majority are not revealed and categorized due to barrier in cultivation techniques. However, the situation has changed in recent years because of the rapid development of phylogenetic studies based on small ribosomal RNA and rDNA sequencing independent to standard laboratory cultivation. These changes have significantly altered our understanding about microbial diversity and microbial ecology. In this review, we highlight some of recent progress and innovation in research on microbial diversity, and propose a metagenomic scheme as an alternative to overcome some of the barriers that still remain for exploitation of marine microbial diversity for its enormous potential in pharmaceutical applications. We believe that rapid progress in marine metagenomics allows direct access to the genomes of numerous non-cultivable microorganisms for their associ
ISSN:0001-6209