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If not sequenced, would we not know many of them by traditional identification methods (e.g. staining) ? I'm guessing their sequencing process prevents the concurrent use of these methods, so we can't match up DNA to known bacteria.

As for unculturability, the recent antibiotic discovery that made the news came from learning how to culture soil bacteria. No, we didn't learn what it needs. We just grew it in it's natural environment: dirt. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8852487

Revolutionary. (seriously).



> If not sequenced, would we not know many of them by traditional identification methods (e.g. staining) ?

Yes, and no. Many "traditional" staining methods dont really offer up much information, like a gram-stain (common when learning microbiology, not so common in research) can only divide bacteria into two groups: gram-positive and gram-negative. More to the point, if these bacteria have no known methods of culturing (which was correctly noted at 90%+), you can not get them in a pure culture and can only stain them in mixed groups, which isnt that useful.

That being said, there are some staining-like methods you can use to identify what taxonomic group a given bacteria is from. You can use a fluorescent DNA probe that binds to a specific target region of DNA that is highly conserved in groups of bacteria (the 16S rRNA). It is not 100% accurate, and it requires reference data from known organisms, but it can be a good tool for initial surveys of mixed samples. You can also get some cool looking pictures from it.

>I'm guessing their sequencing process prevents the concurrent use of these methods, so we can't match up DNA to known bacteria.

Nope! The above method is actually used in some single-cell sequencing techniques. The cell is florescently tagged, then you can use a microfluidic device (or other methods) to isolate the cell, extract its DNA, and sequence. It is however difficult to assemble a complete genome from a single cell's DNA.




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