300317 VO Biodiversity and molecular ecology of microorganisms 1 (2010W)

The first part of this two-part lecture series (second part in summer semester) provides an encompassing overview on state-of-the-art molecular methods for analyzing the composition of microbial communities in complex environmental and medical samples. The lecture starts with the introduction of the bacterial species concept and parameters of microbial diversity ("species richness" and "species evenness"), followed by a detailed description of the full rRNA approach. Further techniques, which are described and critically discussed regarding their suitability for identification and quantification of microorganisms, include fluorescence in situ hybridization, quantitative real-time PCR, dot/slot blot and DNA microarray hybridization, DNA fingerprinting techniques, and novel high-throughput sequencing technologies (454/FLX, Solexa).