Premium
Taking the technical microbiome into the next decade
Author(s) -
De Vrieze Jo,
Boon Nico,
Verstraete Willy
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
environmental microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.954
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1462-2920
pISSN - 1462-2912
DOI - 10.1111/1462-2920.14269
Subject(s) - microbiome , biology , process (computing) , sanitation , gut microbiome , microbiology and biotechnology , data science , risk analysis (engineering) , computational biology , computer science , bioinformatics , business , engineering , environmental engineering , operating system
Summary The ‘microbiome’ has become a buzzword. Multiple new technologies allow to gather information about microbial communities as they evolve under stable and variable environmental conditions. The challenge of the next decade will be to develop strategies to compose and manage microbiomes. Here, key aspects are considered that will be of crucial importance for future microbial technological developments. First, the need to deal not only with genotypes but also particularly with phenotypes is addressed. Microbial technologies are often highly dependent on specific core organisms to obtain the desired process outcome. Hence, it is essential to combine omics data with phenotypic information to invoke and control specific phenotypes in the microbiome. Second, the development and application of synthetic microbiomes is evaluated. The central importance of the core species is a no‐brainer, but the implementation of proper satellite species is an important route to explore. Overall, for the next decade, microbiome research should no longer almost exclusively focus on its capacity to degrade and dissipate but rather on its remarkable capability to capture disordered components and upgrade them into high‐value microbial products. These products can become valuable commodities in the cyclic economy, as reflected in the case of ‘reversed sanitation’, which is introduced here.