Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis as a fingerprinting method for the analysis of soil microbial communities

V. Valášková and P. Baldrian
Additional contact information
V. Valášková: Laboratory of Environmental Microbiology, Institute of Microbiology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic
P. Baldrian: Laboratory of Environmental Microbiology, Institute of Microbiology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic

Plant, Soil and Environment, 2009, vol. 55, issue 10, 413-423

Abstract: In soil microbial ecology, the effects of environmental factors and their gradients, temporal changes or the response to specific experimental treatments of microbial communities can only be effectively analyzed using methods that address the structural differences among whole communities. Fingerprinting methods are the most appropriate technique for this task when multiple samples must be analyzed. Among the methods currently used to compare microbial communities based on nucleic acid sequences, the techniques based on differences in the melting properties of double-stranded molecules, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) or temperature gradient gel electrophoresis (TGGE), are the most widely used. Their main advantage is that they provide the possibility to further analyze whole sequences contained in fingerprints using molecular methods. In addition to the analysis of microbial communities based on DNA extracted from soils, DGGE/TGGE can also be used for the assessment of the active part of the community based on the analysis of RNA-derived sequences or for the analysis of sequences of functional genes encoding for proteins involved in important soil processes.

Keywords: DGGE; bacteria; fungi; microbial community; soil ecology; TGGE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://pse.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/132/2009-PSE.html (text/html)
http://pse.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/132/2009-PSE.pdf (application/pdf)
free of charge

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:caa:jnlpse:v:55:y:2009:i:10:id:132-2009-pse

DOI: 10.17221/132/2009-PSE

Access Statistics for this article

Plant, Soil and Environment is currently edited by Kateřina Součková

More articles in Plant, Soil and Environment from Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ivo Andrle ().