Constructing and screening a metagenomic library of a cold and alkaline extreme environment

Natural cold or alkaline environments are common on Earth. A rare combination of these two extremes is found in the permanently cold (less than 6 °C) and alkaline (pH above 10) ikaite columns in the Ikka Fjord in Southern Greenland. Bioprospecting efforts have established the ikaite columns as a sou...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Glaring, Mikkel Andreas, Vester, Jan Kjølhede, Stougaard, Peter
Other Authors: Streit, Wolfgang R., Daniel, Rolf
Format: Book Part
Language:English
Published: Springer 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://curis.ku.dk/portal/da/publications/constructing-and-screening-a-metagenomic-library-of-a-cold-and-alkaline-extreme-environment(d6a7234d-7c0d-411c-9b22-56a7244d9421).html
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6691-2_4
Description
Summary:Natural cold or alkaline environments are common on Earth. A rare combination of these two extremes is found in the permanently cold (less than 6 °C) and alkaline (pH above 10) ikaite columns in the Ikka Fjord in Southern Greenland. Bioprospecting efforts have established the ikaite columns as a source of bacteria and enzymes adapted to these conditions. They have also highlighted the limitations of cultivation-based methods in this extreme environment and metagenomic approaches may provide access to novel extremophilic enzymes from the uncultured majority of bacteria. Here, we describe the construction and screening of a metagenomic library of the prokaryotic community inhabiting the ikaite columns.