New Bacterial Culture Methods Could Result in the Discovery of Diverse New Species of Microbes

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Novel Method for Culturing Bacteria

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Novel approaches for culturing formerly “unculturable” germs. Credit: Molina-Menor, Gimeno-Valero, Peretó and Porcar

The culture-dependent research study enabled to separate a remarkably a great deal of varied and formerly unreported bacterial stress from the Tabernas Desert.

Microorganisms are the most plentiful and varied kind of life on Earth. However, the large bulk of them stay unidentified. Indeed, just a little portion of the bacteria of our world can be cultured under standard conditions, leaving a world of unculturable organisms out of our scope. This is specifically real for germs growing under severe conditions as the extreme conditions are barely reproducible in a laboratory. While some microbial research studies have actually been carried out in the Sahara, the Atacama, and the Gibson desert, European dry lands stay inadequately studied.

To lastly check out the microbial neighborhood of some European deserts, scientists from the University of Valencia and the Darwin Bioprospecting Excellence, here studied the bacterial variety of the semi-arid Tabernas Desert. To this objective, the group established brand-new bacterial culture methods.

Tabernas Desert

The semi-arid Tabernas Desert in the province of Almería, Spain. Credit: Molina-Menor, Gimeno-Valero, Peretó and Porcar

“Culturomics of the Tabernas desert was the ideal crossroad between a rare, poorly studied environment, and the application of simple, yet powerful culturing techniques including long incubation times, diluted media, and careful colony picking,” states Dr. Manuel Porcar, group leader at the University of Valencia, president of Darwin Bioprospecting Excellence, and last author of the research study.

The scientists explore various culture approaches to discover liberal conditions for some unculturable types. Their technique depended on integrating various media, utilizing serial dilutions of the nutrients (as much as a hundred times), and extending incubation time (as much as a month). In overall, 254 bacterial stress were separated. Most of the types separated from the focused media were formerly referred to as soil occupants or types separated from other deserts. However, 60% of the stress separated from the extremely watered down media are non-identified and potentially brand-new germs types. Besides, playing on incubation times likewise enabled, after a month, to separate some oligotrophic stress (slow-growing germs living under low nutrient conditions) otherwise challenging to development under laboratory conditions.

Tabernas Desert Spain

The semi-arid Tabernas Desert in the province of Almería, Spain. Credit: Molina-Menor, Gimeno-Valero, Peretó and Porcar

Altogether, this research study highlights the capacity of basic techniques to get greater microbial variety from natural samples, specifically if drawn from severe environments. But the unexploited bacterial biodiversity of the Tabernas Desert might have effects well beyond ecology and bacteriology:

“We are currently characterizing several of the unidentified bacteria, three of them being new Kineococcus species. I am certain that some bacterial strains produce biotechnologically relevant products. It is just a matter to carry out the right screening,” states Porcar.

Reference: “High Culturable Bacterial Diversity From a European Desert: The Tabernas Desert” by Esther Molina-Menor, Helena Gimeno-Valero, Javier Pascual2, Juli Peretó and Manuel Porcar, 8 January 2021, Frontiers in Microbiology.
DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.583120