Question

Are there earthly microbes that have not yet been isolated and grown in culture? If so, what is the predicted percentage? Are there methods to study microbes that cannot be cultured?

Answer 1

Yes, it is estimated that there are about one trillion microbes species on earth, and we have not been able to isolate 99.99% of them, so, the knowledge is very limited. There is an study approach called METAGENOMICS. In Greek, meta means “transcendent.” It is a research field that allows to study comunities from their total DNA. It is, you can extract and sequence DNA from a sample, and find out about the composition of the population in there, even the interactions between them, with no need of pure culture.

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