From genes to microbial consortia: multi-level bioprospecting of natural and artificial environments

2017

Microbial bioprospecting is the identification of microorganisms, genes, enzymes, and/or metabolic pathways with biotechnological applications in industry or in research itself. This thesis aimed at bioprospecting a range of unexplored, natural and artificial environments subjected to harsh physicochemical conditions by applying a multi-level strategy. The microbial communities were analyzed in a first step by means of metagenomic sequencing, which yielded an extensive catalog of the microbial species and/or genes occurring in the community, and allowed the ecological contextualization of new habitats. Culturing in artificial media was used as a complementary approach in order to isolate, s…