Metagenomic Study for the Diversity Analysis of Extremophiles

Abstract

Microbial communities are the most abundant entities found in the Earth’s biosphere. Due the limitations in culture techniques it is difficult to identify the microorganisms in the biosphere. Many organisms cannot survive in normal environment, extremophilic microorganisms surviving and thriving in extreme temperature like heat, cold, salinity, pH, pressure and radiation. These extreme environments are too harsh for normal life to exist. To analyze the microbial communities in these environments, a non-culture-based approach, called “metagenomics”, was developed to provide the extensive information. The characterization of an organism in terms of molecular phylogenetic techniques based on 16S rRNA gene sequence comparisons have been employed, more recently high throughput pyrosequencing technology has been used to identify the uncultured microbes in the extreme environment. Therefore, the development of next generation sequencing technology allows metagenomic library to be rapidly constructed and sequenced, these provides a more comprehensive view of microbial diversity.