Metagenomics for Studying Unculturable Microorganisms: Cutting the Gordian Knot

Overview

Journal Genome Biol

Specialties Biology
Genetics

Date 2005 Aug 10

PMID 16086859

Citations 130

Authors

Patrick D Schloss

Jo Handelsman

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

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.

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