BIT 495/595 Microbial Bioprospecting
Microbial metagenomes encode an astronomical diversity of proteins and
enzymes, the majority of which have not yet been described or characterized. This course
will cover the experimental techniques for mining microbial metagenomes for functions of
interest, followed by the computational techniques required to analyze the resulting data. At
the conclusion of this course, students will be comfortable with screening microbial
metagenomes for genes which confer a desired phenotype on a chosen bacterium.
Overview
- To introduce students to modern approaches to discovering novel enzymes from microbial communities.
- Students will practice functional metagenomic library creation, screening, sequencing, and data analysis.
- Students will produce DNA sequences encoding useful enzymes (e.g. amylase), bioprospected directly from local samples.
- At the conclusion of this course, students will be comfortable with screening microbial metagenomes for genes which confer a desired phenotype on a chosen bacterium.
Topics:
- The statistics of library screening.
- Overview of library creation.
- Analyzing functional metagenomic screening data.
- Applications of functional metagenomics.
- Presenting functional metagenomic data.
Labs:
- Culturing a functional metagenomic library under selective conditions.
- Isolating hits and measuring bacterial growth rates.
- Recovering and sequencing metagenomic inserts.
- Annotating insert sequencing data.
- Presenting and reviewing results of screening experiments.