Single-cell genomics of environmental bacteria-Development of microfluidic droplet-based whole genome sequencing method and its application to environmental samples

Abstract

Abstract

In order to elucidate the functions of uncultivable environmental bacteria, genome sequence-based analysis which does not depend on cultivation has been attracted attentions. As the development of next-generation sequencers has made it possible to obtain a large amount of sequence information at one time, genome analysis for a variety of environmental samples are currently in progress. The accumulated genome information is utilized for various analyses, and new knowledge is reported daily. In this review, recent research topics in the genome analysis of environmental bacteria using metagenomes and single-cell genomes are summarized. In particular, applications and usefulness of single-cell genome analysis using microdroplets will be described in detail.