Division of Gastroenterology, F. Widjaja Foundation Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California.
Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 2020 Dec 1;319(6):G639-G645. doi: 10.1152/ajpgi.00093.2020. Epub 2020 Sep 30.
The discovery of human-associated microscopic life forms has captivated the scientific community since their first documentation in the 17th century. Subsequent isolation and cultivation of microorganisms have spurred great leaps in medicine, including the discovery of antibiotics, identifying pathogens that cause infectious diseases, and vaccine development. The realization that there is a vast discrepancy between the number of microscopic cell counts and how many could thrive in the laboratory motivated the advent of sequencing-based approaches to characterize the uncultured fraction of the microbiota, leading to an unprecedented view into their composition and putative function on all bodily surfaces. It soon became apparent that specific members of the microbiota can be our commensal partners with new implications on various aspects of health, as well as a rich source of therapeutic compounds and tools for biotechnology. Harnessing the immense repertoire of microbial properties, however, inadvertently requires pure cultures for validation and manipulation of candidate genes, proteins, or metabolic pathways, just as mammalian cell culture has become an indispensable tool for mechanistic understanding of host biology. Yet, this renewed interest in growing microorganisms, individually or as a consortium, is stalled by the laborious nature of conventional cultivation methods. Addressing this unmet need through implementation of improved media design and new cultivation techniques is arguably instrumental to future milestones in translational microbiome research.
自 17 世纪首次记录以来，人类相关的微观生命形式的发现一直吸引着科学界的关注。随后对微生物的分离和培养推动了医学的巨大飞跃，包括发现抗生素、确定引起传染病的病原体以及疫苗的开发。人们意识到，在显微镜下可以计数的细胞数量与可以在实验室中生长的数量之间存在巨大差异，这促使人们采用基于测序的方法来描述微生物组中未培养的部分，从而使人们能够以前所未有的视角了解它们在所有身体表面的组成和潜在功能。很快就发现，微生物群的特定成员可以成为我们的共生伙伴，这对健康的各个方面都有新的影响，并且是治疗化合物和生物技术工具的丰富来源。然而，要利用微生物的巨大特性，就需要进行纯培养，以验证和操作候选基因、蛋白质或代谢途径，就像哺乳动物细胞培养已经成为理解宿主生物学机制的不可或缺的工具一样。然而，由于传统培养方法的繁琐性质，这种对微生物生长的兴趣（无论是单独生长还是作为联合体生长）都停滞不前。通过实施改进的培养基设计和新的培养技术来满足这一未满足的需求，可以说是未来转化微生物组研究里程碑的关键。
