A novel method for cultivating soil bacteria

Ribosomal RNA analyses of soil microbial communities consistently indicate that the majority of microorganisms in soil have never been cultivated or described in the laboratory. It has been suggested that microorganisms fail to grow in traditional culture media because the media fails to simulate the organisms' natural environment. We designed a unique culture technique that can cultivate an average of 40% and as high as 90% of the bacteria present in a soil sample. The 16S rDNA of 50 of these isolates were PCR amplified, sequenced, and analyzed. Nineteen, 26, 2 and 3 of the isolates were affiliated with the phyla Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes, respectively. Ten isolates possessed less than 98% sequence similarity to any previously characterized organism.