Book review

Environmental Molecular Microbiology

The study of environmental microbial communities is mainly based on the detection and analysis of nucleic acids. With recent developments of molecular techniques these techniques can now be applied to study composition and function of microbial communities in different environments. The present book is a contribution to the advances of molecular techniques in environmental microbiology. More than 30 authors, representing highly recognized institutes such as the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Center for Microbial Ecology of the Michigan State University, to name just a few, have contributed to this book.

The eleven chapters of the book can be divided in two parts. The first part, comprising Chapter 1 to 5, deals with nucleic acid based molecular approaches to study the microbial diversity in the environment. The second part with Chapters 6 to 11 focuses on the application of the molecular techniques in the different environments.

Chapter 1 covers microbial diversity and phylogeny and serves as a nice introduction to the following chapters. The importance of the use of the 16SrRNA gene for the identification of microorganisms and also the difficulties about species definition are described. However, the 97% rule for species differentiation from E. Stackebrandt and B.M. Goebel is misinterpreted (page 12). The reader, who wishes to know more about this subject, is referred to Molecular Microbial Ecology: Land of the one-eyed King (L.J. Forney et al, Current Opinion in Microbiology 2004 (7): 210-220).

In Chapter 2 the purpose of metagenomics is very nicely described. The most useful technique in the field of metagenomics is sequencing, which covers most of this chapter. The more interested reader might be disappointed, since six references mentioned in the text are not included in the reference list. While genomics can provide information about the 'Who is there', proteomics can provide information about 'What they are doing' (Chapter 3). Three boxes interspersed throughout the text highlight useful information.

Chapter 4 is about nucleic acid-based techniques for the characterization of microbial community structure and function. These methods comprise sequence analysis and other fingerprinting methods, stable isotope probing and quantitative PCR, to name a few. The same misinterpretation as in Chapter 2 that 97 % sequence similarity is used for species identification occurs here, too (page 70).

Chapter 5 is dedicated to the use of microarrays, one of the latest technologies in microbial ecology. Not only are microarrays explained in great detail, but also PhyloChip (phylogenetic microarray) and GeoChip (functional microarray) are introduced.

The following Chapters 6 to 9 cover information on microbial communities of different environments, such as soil, plants, oceans, and humans. Each environment has its difficulties to deal with and its own specific microbial communities. The subject of Chapter 10 is wastewater treatment. Since molecular techniques have been recently applied to the cleaning of wastewater, the knowledge about important processes such as nitrification, anaerobic ammonia oxidation, and methane fermentation have increased. The last chapter is dedicated to biofilms. Besides information about their structural characteristics, also impact, development and its genetics, and biofilm control are pointed out.

This book does not try to be complete, but summarizes the current stat-of-the-art molecular techniques, which are used in environmental microbiology. The importance of sequencing is reflected in the fact that several chapters include a separate section about sequencing analysis. Each chapter contains figures for a better understanding, and ends with a summary/conclusion and a few words about the future perspective. The increasing importance of the world wide web is reflected in the fact that most chapters contain many links to relevant websites. The time that internet addresses are not allowed as references has definitely past. The book will be a useful addition to the libraries of students and professionals, but unfortunately, the price for this hardcover book is on the high side.

Review by: Mareike Viebahn, PhD, Centocor BV, Einsteinweg 92, 2333 CD Leiden, The Netherlands

Full details of the book available at Environmental Molecular Microbiology

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