Microverse Cluster member Christian Jogler and his colleague Muriel van Teeseling give an insight on the challenging cultivation of elusive microorganisms and the great opportunities for new discoveries in a comment published in Nature Communications.

Referring to the recent publication of Katayama et al. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33318506/) Jogler and van Teesling discuss the enormous potential of not yet cultivated microorganisms and their biology. After a three-year effort of isolating and bringing a member of the candidate phylum 'Atribacteria' from anaerobic habitats into culture, Katayama and colleagues discovered their fascinating cell biology, challenging existing views on the organization of prokaryotic cells.

Jogler and van Teesling underline that the huge potential to reveal new biology warrants the focus on cultivating slow-growing microorganisms requiring complex growth conditions or co-cultivation. The time needed to bring such elusive organisms in culture should be considered by funding schemes in the future.

Read the full article here: www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20393-9

Text: Alena Gold
Photo:  Anne Günther, FSU Jena

01/13/2021