Development of a culture-independent method for the identification of microbial enzyme-encoding genes using water-in-oil microdroplets and its application

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K18668
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Applied microbiology
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Iizuka Ryo 東京大学, 大学院薬学系研究科(薬学部), 助教 (90541954)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 液滴 / 微生物 / 酵素 / マイクロ流体デバイス

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Environmental microbes are a great source of industrially valuable enzymes with potent and unique catalytic activities. Unfortunately, the majority of microbes remain unculturable and thus are not accessible by culture-based methods. Then, I envisioned a culture-independent method for the identification of microbial enzyme-encoding genes using water-in-oil microdroplets. In this study, I established the method and demonstrated its practicality and usefulness. This method will facilitate the identification of genes encoding industrially valuable enzymes.

Free Research Field

応用微生物学