Investigating the Biotechnological Potential of Arctic Bacteria. High Arctic Environmental Metagenomes

This study was conducted as part of the EU H2020 Marie Curie MicroArctic ITN (2016-2020). Several habitats from High Arctic glacier systems were sampled in order to investigate Arctic bacteria for potential biotechnological applications. The cryosphere is a prime region for bioprospecting because it has extreme environmental conditions that increase the probability of NP novelty, it is underexplored, and it is threatened by global climate change. Initially, 16S rRNA gene amplicon analysis was used to identify environments with high bioprospecting potential in a Svalbard glacier system. Thereafter, shotgun metagenomics was used to understand the high-potential environments better.