Sorcerer II: The Search for Microbial Diversity Roils the Waters

摘要

The Sorcerer II probably captured only a tiny fraction of the genetic diversity out there, says Mitchell Sogin, Director of the Josephine Bay Paul Center in Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In August 2006, Sogin and his colleagues published a detailed analysis of variable stretches of ribosomal RNA collected from the marine microbial world (Figure 2) [3]. "We estimate there are at least 25,000 different kinds of microbes per litre of seawater," says Sogin. "But I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out there are 100,000 or more." A few of these microbes are common, and Venter will probably use them to recover complete gene sequences, he says. "The vast majority of low-abundance organisms are going undetected."