Tiwari Neha, Bansal Megha, Santhiya Deenan, Sharma Jai Gopal
Department of Biotechnology, Delhi Technological University, Delhi, India.
Department of Applied Chemistry, Delhi Technological University, Shahbad Daulatpur, Main Bawana Road, Delhi, 110042, India.
Arch Microbiol. 2022 Mar 22;204(4):216. doi: 10.1007/s00203-022-02806-z.
Plastic pollution is a major concern in marine environment as it takes many years to degrade and is one of the greatest threats to marine life. Plastic surface, referred to as plastisphere, provides habitat for growth and proliferation of various microorganisms. The discovery of these microbes is necessary to identify significant genes, enzymes and bioactive compounds that could help in bioremediation and other commercial applications. Conventional culture techniques have been successful in identifying few microbes from these habitats, leaving majority of them yet to be explored. As such, to recognize the vivid genetic diversity of microbes residing in plastisphere, their structure and corresponding ecological roles within the ecosystem, an emerging technique, called metagenomics has been explored. The technique is expected to provide hitherto unknown information on microbes from the plastisphere. Metagenomics along with next generation sequencing provides comprehensive knowledge on microbes residing in plastisphere that identifies novel microbes for plastic bioremediation, bioactive compounds and other potential benefits. The following review summarizes the efficiency of metagenomics and next generation sequencing technology over conventionally used methods for culturing microbes. It attempts to illustrate the workflow mechanism of metagenomics to elucidate diverse microbial profiles. Further, importance of integrated multi-omics techniques has been highlighted in discovering microbial ecology residing on plastisphere for wider applications.
塑料污染是海洋环境中的一个主要问题，因为它需要很多年才能降解，并且是对海洋生物的最大威胁之一。塑料表面，即所谓的“塑料圈”，为各种微生物的生长和繁殖提供了栖息地。发现这些微生物对于识别有助于生物修复和其他商业应用的重要基因、酶和生物活性化合物至关重要。传统培养技术仅成功地从这些栖息地鉴定出少数微生物，大多数微生物仍有待探索。因此，为了认识居住在“塑料圈”中的微生物的丰富遗传多样性、它们的结构以及在生态系统中的相应生态作用，人们探索了一种新兴技术——宏基因组学。预计该技术将提供有关来自“塑料圈”微生物的前所未知的信息。宏基因组学与下一代测序相结合，提供了关于居住在“塑料圈”中微生物的全面知识，从而识别出用于塑料生物修复、生物活性化合物及其他潜在益处的新型微生物。以下综述总结了宏基因组学和下一代测序技术相对于传统微生物培养方法的效率。它试图阐明宏基因组学的工作流程机制，以阐明多样的微生物概况。此外，还强调了综合多组学技术在发现“塑料圈”微生物生态学以实现更广泛应用方面的重要性。
