Metagenomic Bioprospecting of Uncultivable Microbial Flora in Soil Microbiome for Novel Enzymes

Abstract

Soil microorganisms are the well-known and richest source of biocatalysts/enzymes, which plays a vital role in the industrial and agriculture sector. The soil microbes or enzymes from these microbes were known to perform several functions like urea hydrolysis, denitrification, sulfate reduction, promoting plant growth by nitrogen fixation, carbon cycling, organic matter/micronutrient recycling, and removal of metal ions. Soil microbiome studied through traditional microbiological methods failed to cover and extract the whole genetic information of the chosen microbiome, due to the major limitations in mimicking their growth/cultivation conditions. Metagenomics is a molecular tool applied to directly extract and study the genetic material(DNA/RNA) from the chosen microbiome, revealing microbial population and all possible gene information. Two different metagenomic approaches are functional metagenomics and sequence-based metagenomics. This review discusses the overview of functional metagenomics to obtain gene information through functional screening and sequence-based metagenomic approach to directly identify the sequence of DNA that reveals gene information and microbial community/soil microbiome.

Keywords:

• Enzymes
• metagenomics
• soil microbiome
• functional screening

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India for funding through the DST-INSPIRE faculty award and research grant [IFA14-ENG-87].