Exploring the Functions of Microbes and Their Communities
Microbes represent the greatest reservoir of genetic and biochemical diversity on the planet. They drive the chemistry of life, do much of the biogeochemical cycling that keeps the world habitable, and even affect the global climate. Over billions of years, microbes have developed a wealth of functions that enable their survival in virtually every environmental niche, often where no other life forms exist. Knowledge about the metabolic and regulatory pathways of microbes and their communities will provide the foundation to begin understanding and using their remarkable capabilities, especially those related to environmental remediation, biogeochemical cycles, climate changes, and energy production.
The vast majority of microbes — often thousands of species in a single environmental niche — cannot currently be grown in the laboratory, and estimates are that less than 1% have even been identified. Recent advances in molecular methods now enable an entirely different approach for tapping into the potentially limitless resource of uncultured bacteria: wholesale direct sampling of the DNA present in an entire environmental niche. The genomic information represented by such a "community genome" offers a tremendous resource for examining the extent and patterns of microbial genetic diversity and metabolic capabilities in the natural ecosystems of importance to DOE.
Click on images to enlarge.
| Annotating DNA sequences from microbial communities will offer a first glimpse of the collective metabolic capabilities present in a natural ecosystem, including those of its uncultured members. |
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 The
uncultured cells in this picture were labeled with a fluorescent molecule
used to identify members of the Acidobacterium division of
bacteria, which has only three known cultured members. [Source: Cheryl
Kuske et al., Los Alamos National Laboratory] |
 Learning
to control methane-production pathways in microbes such as Methanococcus
jannaschii (found in boiling hydrothermal sea vents) could one
day provide a new resource for clean energy. [©Stan Watson, Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institute] |
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