SERIAL ANALYSIS OF rRNAS (SARS): A NOVEL MOLECULAR STRATEGY FOR SAMPLING MICROBIAL DIVERSITY THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE

摘要

The most effective means to expand our narrowed view of Earth's microbial diversity is the use of molecular techniques that target ribosomal RNA and other well conserved genes. Molecular data can provide evidence of organisms in an environment without requiring their isolation and growth in the laboratory. However, exhaustive inventories of microbial communities are still impractical. Serial Analysis of rRNAs (SARS) is a new high-throughput technique that can sample at the sequence level short species-specific regions of PCR amplified rRNAs genes from many microorganisms in a single reaction. This provides a means to rapidly and efficiently enumerate relative numbers of rDNA templates in a nucleic acid population extracted from a microbial community. In this communication we describe the application of this technique to an extreme environment, the hydrothermally active sediments of the Guaymas Basin (Gulf of California, Mexico).