Molecular tools to assess the diversity and density of denitrifying bacteria in their habitats

2007

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the molecular tools to assess the diversity and density of denitrifying bacteria in their habitats. Genome sequencing and metagenomic projects might even provide new denitrification gene sequences, which could aid in designing more broad range primers. Most information is obtained by cloning and sequencing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplicons, but a more rapid analysis is achieved using fingerprinting techniques. As all PCR-based analyses, the fingerprinting techniques are subjected to well-known biases introduced by, e.g., DNA extraction procedures, primer selection, and PCR conditions. For denitrifiers, the PCR-RFLP (restriction fragment l…