Application of a new cultivation technology, I‐tip, for studying microbial diversity in freshwater sponges of Lake Baikal, Russia. Issue 2 (26th August 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jung, Dawoon; Seo, Eun‐Young; Epstein, Slava S.; Joung, Yochan; Han, Jaemin; Parfenova, Valentina V.; Belykh, Olga I.; Gladkikh, Anna S.; Ahn, Tae Seok
• Is Part Of: FEMS microbiology ecology. Volume 90:Issue 2(2014)
• Page Start: 417
• Page End: 423
• Publication Date: 2014-08-26
• Subjects: Microbial ecology -- Periodicals; Microbiology -- Periodicals; 579.17
• DOI: 10.1111/1574-6941.12399
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0168-6496

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="fem12399-abs-0001"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>One of the fundamental methods for cultivating bacterial strains is conventional plating on solid media, but this method does not reveal the true diversity of the bacterial community. In this study, we develop a new technique and introduce a new device we term, I‐tip. The I‐tip was developed as an <italic>in situ</italic> cultivation device that allows microorganisms to enter and natural chemical compounds to diffuse, thereby permitting the microorganisms to grow utilizing chemical compounds in their natural environment. The new method was used to cultivate microorganisms from Baikalian sponges, and the results were compared with conventional plating as well as a pyrosequencing‐based molecular survey. The I‐tip method produced cultures of 34 species from five major phyla, <italic>Actinobacteria</italic>, <italic> Alphaproteobacteria</italic>, <italic> Betaproteobacteria</italic>, <italic> Firmicutes</italic>, and <italic>Gammaproteobacteria</italic>, 'missing' only two major phyla detected by pyrosequencing. Meanwhile, standard cultivation produced a smaller collection of 16 species from three major phyla, <italic>Betaproteobacteria</italic>, <italic> Firmicutes</italic>, and <italic>Gammaproteobacteria, </italic> failing to detect over half of the major phyla registered by pyrosequencing. We conclude that the I‐tip method can narrow the gap between cultivated and uncultivated species, at least for some of the more challenging microbial communities such as those associated with animal hosts.</p> </abstract>