Cultivation of uncultured microorganisms - Novel cultivation techniques for a selective enrichment of Marine Group II Euryarchaeota for physiological  and molecular biological characterization

The overarching objective of my project is the selective enrichment and cultivation of MG II Euryarchaeota. The project is a sub-project of the interdiscplinary BMBF-project Multikulti with the aim to cultivate uncultured microorganisms from different aquatic environments with novel techniques and a newly designed bioreactor. 

Marine Group II Euryarchaeota (MGII) are exclusively found in marine habitats and particularly abundant in surface waters. Genomes derived from metagenomes and single cell genomes hint to a (photo)-heterotroph lifestyle with the ability to degrade proteins and lipids. 

It is suggested that MGII Euryarchaeota play an important part in the marine C- and N-cycle. However, despite numerous metagenomes, single cell genomes and ecological studies, the biology of MGII Euryarchaeota and their ecological function remains unclear due to the lack of isolates. With this project we aim to successfully cultivate and characterize MG II Euryarchaeota in order to unravel their biology and ecological function.

Link to project:

www.multikultivierung.de