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Metagenomics for studying unculturable microorganisms: cutting the Gordian knot
Author affiliations
Department of Plant Pathology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA
Citation and License
Genome Biology 2005, 6:229 doi:10.1186/gb-2005-6-8-229
Published: 1 August 2005Abstract
More than 99% of prokaryotes in the environment cannot be cultured in the laboratory, a phenomenon that limits our understanding of microbial physiology, genetics, and community ecology. One way around this problem is metagenomics, the culture-independent cloning and analysis of microbial DNA extracted directly from an environmental sample. Recent advances in shotgun sequencing and computational methods for genome assembly have advanced the field of metagenomics to provide glimpses into the life of uncultured microorganisms.
