Perspectives on the cultivability of environmental microorganisms

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”.