Portable and Rapid Sequencing Device with Microbial Community-Guided Culture Strategies for Precious Field and Environmental Samples

Culturing unculturable bacteria is a classic microbiology challenge; to successfully culture unculturable bacteria, microbiologists work hard to create hundreds of culture conditions. To improve the success rate and efficiency of culturing a broad spectrum of environmental microbes, it is helpful to know more about the microbial community composition. Shortening the amount of time spent sequencing, analyzing sequencing data, and predicting suitable culture conditions seems to be a critical step for improving knowledge of microbes in environmental samples and expanding culture collections. In this commentary, we introduce potential strategies using rapid and portable sequencing devices to help scientists design and plan for specific microbial culture media on their way back to the laboratory. Rapid metagenomic sequencing approaches and real-time analysis make it possible to choose microbes we are interested in and discover novel microbes in environments for cultivation.