Subtractive hybridization magnetic bead capture: A new technique for the recovery of full‐length ORFs from the metagenome

A new method for the recovery of full‐length open reading frames from metagenomic nucleic acid samples is reported. This technique, based on subtractive hybridization magnetic bead capture technology, has the potential to access multiple gene variants from a single amplification reaction. It is now widely accepted that classical microbiological methods provide only limited access to the true microbial biodiversity (less than 1%). The desire to access a higher proportion of the metagenome has led to the development of efficient environmental nucleic acid extraction technologies and to a range of sequence‐dependent and sequence‐independent gene discovery techniques. These methods avoid many of the limitations of culture‐dependent gene targeting.