Latest News

Clues beginning to emerge on asymtomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection
Back in November of 2020, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was teaching an in-person microbiology laboratory. One of my students had just been home to see his parents, and they all c…
Read more
Could there maybe be better uses of genetics and probiotics?
Professor Meng Dong and his laboratory have created a probiotic that can metabolize alcohol quickly and maybe prevent some of the adverse effects of alcohol consumption. The scientists cloned a highl…
Read more
ChatGPT is not the end of essays in education
The takeover of AI is upon us! AI can now take all our jobs, is the click-bait premise you hear from the news. While I cannot predict the future, I am dubious that AI will play such a dubious role in…
Read more
Fighting infections with infections
Multi-drug-resistant bacterial infections are becoming more of an issue, with 1.2 million people dying of previously treatable bacterial infections. Scientists are frantically searching for new metho…
Read more
A tale of two colleges
COVID-19 at the University of Wisconsin this fall has been pretty much a non-issue. While we are wearing masks, full in-person teaching is happening on campus. Bars, restaurants, and all other busine…
Read more

News

Genomic streamlining in marine microbes


 

Knowledge about microbes has proven to be useful for gaining a better understanding of the environment. As an example, phytoplankton – a photosynthetic marine microorganism – was discovered to be a source of half the Earth’s supply of oxygen, thereby providing insight to our relationship with the ocean.

However, researchers currently have an understanding about only a tiny fraction out of millions of existing microbial species. The problem is, most marine microbes cannot be cultivated with the same conditions used for laboratory bacteria. A recent study published in an edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explains why this is so.

According to a recent study published in an edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, free-living marine microbes have simpler genetic makeup than laboratory cultures, which helps them survive under nutrient-poor conditions unlike their laboratory counterparts that thrive under nutrient-dense conditions. The specific conditions that their genomes have adapted to are difficult to simulate, thus making their cultivation difficult.

To obtain the results, researchers of the study collected samples of surface ocean bacterioplankton in different parts of the world. From the samples, they sequenced draft genomes of 56 single amplified genomes (Genome amplification increases the amount of limited DNA samples), which were then compared with the genomes of existing microbial cultures. The team was able to gain insight to the geographic distribution and genomic features of some of the microbes: They found that genome simplification in response to nutrient-poor conditions is a common feature among microbial populations. Also, temperature and latitude affect the where certain bacterial groups are likely to settle.

Another interesting thing to note is that the researchers have managed to obtain answers without cultivating microbial samples. This is made possible by their use of a relatively new technique in genomics known as single-cell sequencing, thus demonstrating the role of biotechnology in enabling new discoveries.