Characteristics and Comparison of Microorganism Cultivation Technologies

Abstract

Microorganisms are of vital importance in marine ecosystems. However, the cultivation of marine microorganisms faces various difficulties. In this paper, various cultural technologies and techniques marine biologists usually are analyzed, and comparison is made based on their principles, pros and cons and application. Batch culture, fed-batch culture and chemostats are selected to represent traditional culture technologies. High-throughput cultivation is a revolutionary technology that greatly improves the efficiency of culturing microorganisms. Co-culture helps cultivation by partly replicating the natural context of microorganisms. Diffusion chambers feature in situ culture. The microfluidic system provides the ability to precisely control nutrients and environmental parameters. Genome-enabled cultivation brings insights from omics approaches to guide microorganism cultivation. The combination of various technologies and techniques offers specialized functions towards various research goals, especially the application of edge-cutting omics and computing tools which is novel to marine biology. Also, constant development in technology should help improve the cost-efficiency of new techniques and complicated systems, leading to more employment and finally more novel findings.