Application of continuous flow bioreactor technology in microbial cultivation

Abstract:

Ninty nine percentage of microorganisms in the environment remains uncultured, called “uncultured” microorganisms or microbial “dark matter”. Unraveling the mysteries of these microbial “dark matter” is especially helpful to understand the diversity of microbes and their metabolic characteristics. DNA genome sequences of microbial “dark matter” could be recovered from the environment samples by population binning of metagenomics and single-cell genomics, independently or combined synergistically. However, microbial functions often cannot be deduced from genetic information alone, and the isolation of uncultured microorganisms remains a powerful approach. Many cultivation-based methods for culturing microorganisms have been developed, such as in situ cultivation, co-culture and continuous flow bioreactor. In this mini-review, we briefly introduce the development of new culture-dependent technology of continuous flow bioreactor and indicate the future research opportunities in this area.