The Challenge of Metagenomic Analysis

DNA sequencing is at the heart of this current study, though the researcher's success also owes a debt to more basic technology. The reason no one had found these organisms before is that the traditional method used to search for small forms of life doesn't work for everything. When confronted with a DNA stew, like the one from the water samples in rifle, scientists use substances called primers to draw out and amplify all the 16S-RRNA genes. But not all 16S- RRNA genes react with primers, rendering some organisms effectively invisible. After a point, discovery came to a hinge on finding new ways of searching.