Community Profiling

A snapshot of a community of microbes can be very informative. In the past, microbiologists used ‘fingerprinting’ methods such as denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) to achieve such snapshots; however, high-throughput DNA sequencing techniques have superseded such approaches. At Novorem we employ Illumina NextGen sequencing technology to obtain the DNA sequences of SSU rRNA amplicons derived from Bacteria and Archaea present in your samples.

Sequencing by synthesis generates thousands of DNA sequences from a single sample. This offers a statistically robust list of organisms present with relative abundances, enabling ranking from the most numerically dominant species to the rarest of the rare. The data is presented as a list of the top ten most abundant species alongside a general description of the physiology of those species – for example, aerobic, fermentative, sulphate-reducing, iron-reducing, denitrifying, organochlorine-respiring, acetogenic or methanogenic.

High-throughput sequencing has revolutionised microbiology over the past decade. Novorem puts it to good use, painting a picture of subsurface conditions from the perspective of the inhabitants.