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Using Omics to Study Microbial Water Quality - abstract
Citation:
Santodomingo, J. Using Omics to Study Microbial Water Quality - abstract. Presented at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, October 17 - 19, 2012.
Impact/Purpose:
This is a seminar for students in the Civil and Environmental Department at the University of Tennessee
Description:
Water is one of the most important resources of all natural ecosystems. Not only is water important to life, but it is also a habitat for a large diversity of microbial forms, in many cases carrying critical geochemical functions. In other instances, water is implicated in outbreaks and therefore monitoring the presence of fecal bacteria and pathogens and their sources is necessary to prevent, control, and remediate contamination events. Culture-based methods are primarily used to assess the microbial water quality of natural and engineered systems, but these assays are selective in nature, and more importantly provide a limited view of the in situ microbial diversity, critical microbiological interactions, genetic network, and the presence of microbes that are harmful to humans and other biota. In order to circumvent some of the limitations associated with culturing methods, our laboratory has incorporated molecular ecology approaches to determine who is present, who is active, and what is the function potential associated with a given microbial community. In this seminar, I will discuss some of the findings obtained in our laboratory in which we have used molecular tools to study a variety of water systems. An emphasis will be placed on using 16S rRNA gene-based techniques and genomic and metagenomic comparisons to identify and monitor sources of fecally impacted waters, assess the microbial diversity of subsurface and drinking water systems, and predict the genetic network of engineered systems.
