de Pascale Donatella, De Santi Concetta, Fu Juan, Landfald Bjarne
Institute of Protein Biochemistry, National Research Council, Via Pietro Castellino 111, I-80134 Naples, Italy.
Mar Genomics. 2012 Dec;8:15-22. doi: 10.1016/j.margen.2012.04.004. Epub 2012 May 16.
The term bioprospecting has been adopted for systematic searches in nature for new bioactive compounds, genes, proteins, microorganisms and other products with potential for commercial use. Much effort has been focused on microorganisms able to thrive under harsh conditions, including the Polar environments. Both the lipid and protein cellular building blocks of Polar microorganisms are shaped by their adaptation to the permanently low temperatures. In addition, strongly differing environments, such as permafrost, glaciers and sea ice, have contributed to additional functional diversity. Emerging massive-parallel sequencing technologies have revealed the existence of a huge, hitherto unseen diversity of low-abundance phylotypes--the rare biosphere--even in the Polar environments. This realization has further strengthened the need to employ cultivation-independent approaches, including metagenomics and single-cell genomic sequencing, to get comprehensive access to the genetic diversity of microbial communities for bioprospecting purposes. In this review, we present an updated snapshot of recent findings on the molecular basis for adaptation to the cold and the phylogenetic diversities of different Polar environments. Novel approaches in bioprospecting are presented and we conclude by showing recent bioprospecting outcomes in terms of new molecules patented or applied by some biotech companies.
生物勘探一词已被用于指代在自然界中系统地寻找具有商业应用潜力的新型生物活性化合物、基因、蛋白质、微生物及其他产品。人们付出了很多努力来研究能够在恶劣环境（包括极地环境）中生存的微生物。极地微生物的脂质和蛋白质细胞组成部分都因适应常年低温而形成了独特的形态。此外，诸如永久冻土、冰川和海冰等差异极大的环境，也造就了更多的功能多样性。新兴的大规模平行测序技术揭示，即使在极地环境中，也存在着大量此前未被发现的低丰度系统发育型——稀有生物圈。这一认识进一步强化了采用非培养方法（包括宏基因组学和单细胞基因组测序）的必要性，以便全面获取微生物群落的遗传多样性用于生物勘探。在本综述中，我们展示了关于适应寒冷的分子基础以及不同极地环境的系统发育多样性的最新研究成果。文中介绍了生物勘探的新方法，最后我们展示了一些生物技术公司已申请专利或应用的新分子方面的近期生物勘探成果。
