Metagenomic insights into the diversity and functions of microbial assemblages in lakes

Abstract

his chapter gives a detailed explanation on the use of metagenomics to elucidate the diversity and functions of microbial assemblages in freshwater lakes. Starting with a historical overview on the role of microscopy and culture in the evolution of the field of microbiology and assessment of microbial community of environmental samples, it goes on explaining various culture-based, culture-independent, and metagenomic methods used to assess the microbial community structure and functions of environmental samples with a specific reference to freshwater lakes. It further explains the sequencing technologies including DNA sequencing, high throughput next generation sequencing (NGS), NGS platforms, illumina sequencing platforms, besides the DNA extraction protocols, amplification and sequencing, bioinformatics assemblies, phylogenetic binning, metagenomic annotations, metatranscriptomics