Coastal Bacterioplankton Systematics: A High Throughput Culturing Approach

斯蒂芬·乔瓦诺尼博士和迈克尔·拉普博士获得了一笔赠款，用于调查、清点、生长和描述太平洋西北部沿海水域的海洋细菌新物种。以前对海水DNA的基因序列的研究已经提供了令人信服的证据，证明许多海洋微生物物种实际上是未知的，可能是因为微生物实验室常规使用的技术不能提供这些细胞复制所需的条件。该项目将采用俄勒冈州立大学开发的一项新技术，该技术使从自然中培养微生物细胞的过程微型化和自动化。这项新技术使用的细胞和营养物质浓度比目前常规使用的培养技术使用的浓度低约10万倍。具体地说，这项调查将对俄勒冈州沿海附近的海洋水域进行采样，该水域位于坐标44°12‘到45°的矩形内。北纬02‘；北纬124度。03‘至124度。38‘W的样本将从整个水柱中采集，深度可达200米。除了支持分离和鉴定新的微生物菌株并对其进行清点的研究外，该项目还将支持一个培养设施的维护，该设施将把细胞培养物或基因组DNA分发到其他实验室进行进一步研究。新培养的细胞物种的特性，如它们的物理尺寸、基因组大小、丰度和在俄勒冈州沿海海水中的分布，它们所使用的营养物质和在其中运行的代谢途径，将被研究，以确定它们与其他微生物的关系，并将这些新的科学菌株命名。这个项目将提供关于太平洋西北部异常高产的沿海水域微生物生物多样性的新知识。由此产生的微生物培养和有关它们的信息将填补关于沿海生态过程的基本知识的空白。这些培养物本身也将成为学术和工业科学家的资源，他们寻求从微生物生物多样性中开发新的农用化学品和药物。

A grant has been awarded to Drs. Stephen Giovannoni and Michael Rappe to survey, inventory, grow and describe new species of marine bacteria from coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest. Previous studies of gene sequences from seawater DNA have provided compelling proof that many species of marine microorganisms are virtually unknown, probably because technologies in routine use in microbiological laboratories do not provide the conditions these cells need to replicate. This project will employ a new technology developed at Oregon State University that miniaturizes and automates the process of culturing microbial cells from nature. This new technology uses concentrations of cells and nutrients that are approximately 100,000 fold lower than those used by the culturing technologies now in routine use. Specifically, this survey will sample oceanic waters off coastal Oregon, within a rectangle described by the coordinates 44 degrees 12' to 45 deg. 02' N; 124 deg. 03' to 124 deg. 38' W. Samples will be taken from throughout the water column at depths ranging to 200 m. In addition to supporting research that isolates and identifies new strains of microorganisms, and inventories them, this project will support the maintenance of a culturing facility that will distribute cell cultures or genomic DNA to other laboratories for further study. Properties of the newly cultured species of cells such as their physical size, genome size, abundance and distribution in Oregon coastal seawater, the nutrients they use and the metabolic pathways that operate in them, will be studied to determine their relationship to other microorganisms, and those strains that are new to science will be named.This project will provide new knowledge about microbial biodiversity in the exceptionally productive coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest. The resulting cultures of microorganisms and information about them will fill gaps in basic knowledge about coastal ecological processes. The cultures themselves will also be a resource for academic and industrial scientists who seek to develop new agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals from microbial biodiversity.