High proportions of bacteria and archaea across most biomes remain uncultured
University of Tennessee at Knoxville · University of California, Berkeley · +5 more institutions
Abstract
A recent paper by Martiny argues that "high proportions" of bacteria in diverse Earth environments have been cultured. Here we reanalyze a portion of the data in that paper, and argue that the conclusion is based on several technical errors, most notably a calculation of sequence similarity that does not account for sequence gaps, and the reliance on 16S rRNA gene amplicons that are known to be biased towards cultured organisms. We further argue that the paper is also based on a conceptual error: namely, that sequence similarity cannot be used to infer "culturability" because one cannot infer physiology from 16S rRNA gene sequences. Combined with other recent, more reliable studies, the evidence supports the…
Citation impact
- FWCI
- 37.29
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 41
Authors
7- ADAndrew D. SteenCorresponding
University of Tennessee at Knoxville
- ACAlexander Crits‐Christoph
University of California, Berkeley
- PCPaul Carini
University of Arizona
- KMKristen M. DeAngelis
University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Tennessee at Knoxville
- NFNoah Fierer
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Topics & keywords
- Biology
- 16S ribosomal RNA
- Archaea
- Biome
- Sequence (biology)
- Similarity (geometry)
- Bacteria
- Amplicon