Confirming microbial lineages through cultivation-independent means
The number of microbes found on Earth has been compared to the number of stars in the Milky Way. Yet the proportion of those microbes that can actually be grown under laboratory conditions is so small it would be akin to those stars that can be seen on a full-moon night in New York City—not many. To learn more about the uncultivated bacteria and archaea surrounding us, researchers are increasingly relying on culture-independent techniques such as single-cell genomics and metagenomics to fill in the still-unexplored branches on the Tree of Life. By carrying out such investigations, scientists hope not only to better understand the organization of microbial life on Earth but also to have more thorough surveys of potentially useful microbial genes, enzymes, pathways, and capabilities that could help DOE advance its energy and environmental missions.