Coastal Bacterioplankton Systematics: A High Throughput Culturing Approach

博士们已获得一笔赠款。Stephen Giovannoni和Michael Rappe将调查、清点、培养和描述来自太平洋西北部沿海水域的新型海洋细菌。以前对海水DNA基因序列的研究提供了令人信服的证据，证明许多海洋微生物种类实际上是未知的，这可能是因为微生物实验室常规使用的技术不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，该技术将从自然界培养微生物细胞的过程小型化和自动化。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低大约10万倍。具体地说，这次调查将在俄勒冈州沿海的一个矩形内取样，这个矩形的坐标是北纬44度12分至45度02分；W. 124度03′至124度38′。样品将从200米深的整个水柱中采集。除了支持分离和鉴定新微生物菌株并对其进行分类的研究外，该项目还将支持维护一个培养设施，该设施将向其他实验室分发细胞培养物或基因组DNA以供进一步研究。新培养的细胞种类的特性，如它们的物理大小、基因组大小、在俄勒冈沿海海水中的丰度和分布、它们使用的营养物质以及在其中运作的代谢途径，将被研究以确定它们与其他微生物的关系，那些科学上的新菌株将被命名。该项目将提供有关西北太平洋沿岸异常多产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有关沿海生态过程的基本知识的空白。培养物本身也将成为寻求从微生物生物多样性中开发新的农用化学品和药物的学术和工业科学家的资源。

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.