环境微生物培养新技术的研究进展

Perspectives on the cultivability of environmental microorganisms

摘要:

遍布于地球上各种生境中的微生物具有丰富的物种多样性。迄今为止, 能够在实验室条件下培养的微生物仅仅是其中的一小部分, 微生物物种的绝大多数还都难以在现有培养技术和条件下进行繁殖和生长。人们把那些尚未在实验室获得培养生长的微生物称之为未培养微生物(Uncultured microorganisms)。本文概述了一些制约微生物培养生长的影响因素, 重点介绍了近年来出现的一些新颖独特的环境微生物培养技术和方法, 包括稀释培养法、高通量培养技术、模拟自然环境的扩散盒技术、土壤基质膜装置、细胞微囊包埋技术等。此外, 本文还总结了通过改善微生物培养条件、设计开发新型的微生物培养基等方面取得的令人瞩目的进展。这些新颖培养技术和培养方法的出现, 显著提高了微生物的可培养性, 发现和鉴定了许多新的微生物物种, 极大地丰富了可培养微生物的多样性和微生物资源, 并为深入研究和开发微生物奠定了良好的资源研究基础。

Abstract:

Microorganisms are widely distributed in various habitats of the earth, and their species diversity is tremendous. However, only a small portion of their representatives are cultivated with the current technology. Those microbes that are not cultivated under laboratory conditions are termed “uncultured microbes”. Uncutured microbes are the majority of the microbial diversity. This review summarizes the recently developed cultivation techniques for microorganisms, with focuses on techniques such as “dilute to extinction culture”, “high-throughput culturing”, “diffusion chambers”, “soil substrate membrane system”, and “single cell encapsulation”.