Scientists are learning that there’s even more diversity than they once believed among the marine microbes you can’t see living in the ocean’s surface layers. And they’re using a new approach to identify them. Single-cell genomics.
Single-cell genomics is opening doors in all fields of biology, enabling researchers to better understand the role of different cells in development and disease. This culture-independent method is particularly useful for microbiology studies, enabling researchers to study the 99% of microorganisms that can’t be identified using traditional microbiology tools.
Dr. Ramunas Stepanauskas and his team at the Single Cell Genomics Center of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences recently used single-cell sequencing discovered that global temperature and latitude patterns of surface ocean bacterioplankton, microbes that have a major impact on the global cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and other elements. They also found much greater genetic variability among uncultured marine microbes than what has been assumed from earlier studies which relied solely on sequencing the 16S rRNA marker gene.
Now in the process of using single-cell genomics to perform a global survey of the genomic diversity of marine microbes, Dr. Stepanuskas and his team are generating genomic and biological pathway data they hope could be useful for energy production or pharmaceutical development.
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