Survival, Dormancy, and Nonculturable Cells in Extreme Deep-Sea Environments

摘要: An important conclusion from the initial application of 16S rRNA sequence analysis to problems in microbial ecology (263) is that most microorganisms (and frequently dominant ones an environment) do not exist culture collections (6, 59, 124, 158). The basis for incongruence between cultivated and naturally occurring strains has been attributed competition during culturing process, cell dormancy nature due starvation other stresses, (or) insufficient understanding combined physical, chemical, nutritional conditions required by strains, especially symbionts members consortia. ability only a minor fraction particularly perplexing specialized environments where limited diversity anticipated intensive efforts have pursued decades, as famous hot springs Yellowstone National Park (15, 336). On hand, discovery potentially key players pelagic marine yet (70, 71, 75, 116, 118, 125, 237, 297) less surprising. oceans are spatially extensive, remote sample, chemically physically diverse on many scales, characterized extreme temperature, pressure, or oligotrophy (300), promoting (230). Together these make obtaining representative cultures, even samples, major difficult results sometimes counterintuitive. For example, anaerobic now known live oxygenated sections water column. Biologically produced methane detected such waters (208, 301), significant communities uncultured (activity unknown) archaeal organisms, identified possibly related genera 237).