Mycrobiology: What Now?

Research in Microbiology 159 (2008) 51e58
www.elsevier.com/locate/resmic

Microbiology: what now?

1. Introduction
Microbes impinge in such a profound way on our lives that
it is difficult to do justice to a general overview of microbiology within the scope of a short article such as this. For practical reasons, this overview will be limited to a procaryo-centric
view of themicrobiological world, although studies of unicellular eukaryotes (parasites, protists, diatoms, algae and fungi)
are undeniably important areas within microbiology and
provide many fascinating and important contributions to our
understanding of the biological world. Much of this article
was inspired by a series of informal meetings organised by
the ‘Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique’ (CNRS), inFrance, in the framework of reinforcing research in fundamental microbiology. However, the views expressed here do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of the participants of this ad
hoc committee.
I would like to present a brief perspective of modern technological developments in the field of microbiology, of their
impact, of their relationship to more classical reductionist approaches to thestudy of prokaryotes and what we are learning
from their use. A more detailed and perhaps idiosyncratic presentation will also be made of selected areas in which these
technologies are clearly contributing to our understanding of
microbial behaviour and its effects and where there has been
complementarity between global and reductionist approaches.
I have elected where possible to cite reviewarticles rather than
the primary literature.
1.1. Life on Earth
The impact of procaryotes (bacteria, archaea and their viruses) on terrestrial life cannot be overestimated. Indeed, life
on earth is essentially that of its microbes (see for example:
ref. [63]). Organised life not only began with microbes but,
by accretion/fusion/internalisation, they have been key elements in evolutiontowards multicellular organisms. Moreover,
for over 3 billion years, microbial ecosystems were largely responsible for transforming a hostile planetary environment
into a world favourable for the development of more elaborate
life forms. Today, life on Earth is entirely dependent on the
microbial world. Microbes are implicated in the maintenance
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doi:10.1016/j.resmic.2007.12.003

of biodiversity and of an environment acceptable for life. It
is estimated that 50% of the biomass of our planet is microbial
and the number of their viruses alone has been estimated at the
astronomical number approaching 1031 [14,31].
1.2. In the beginning
From the late 19th century, but particularly in the first part
of the 20thcentury, microbiology assumed a major role in our
understanding of the basis of life. It continues to do so to this
day. The early studies of Pasteur on spontaneous generation
and those of both Pasteur and Koch on the nature of infectious
diseases affecting both animals and plants provided the foundations of microbiology and furnished the substrate for the
work of Twort and d’Herelle and thediscovery of bacteriophages. In turn, this led directly, after the Second World
War, to our understanding of the genetic code, the gene,
gene organisation and gene expression. Microbial genetics is
not only at the root of molecular biology. It has also played
a pivotal role in understanding metabolic pathways and in
the production of natural products including antibiotics.
2. The rise ofreductionism
One of the major contributions of the study of microbes has
of course been the discovery of basic subcellular processes such
as replication, recombination, DNA repair, gene organisation
and expression (transcription, translation and regulation). This
has involved an essentially reductionist approach in which these
processes were isolated and dissected individually. It has also
led to...