Fungal Metagenomics: An Emerging Approach to Determine the Imperceptible Facets of Fungal Diversity

Microbes are known to produce various metabolites of great industrial interest. Unfortunately, many microbes have neither been identified nor cultivated as the culture-based method has its limitations. An emerging area of metagenomic sequencing, amalgamated with environmental biology and genomics, facilitates a solution for overcoming these problems. It has completely transformed the detection and characterization of complex microbial communities from the genetic material isolated from environmental samples. Moreover, the characterization reveals functional diversity of microbial entities through culture independent assessment. Applications include studying environmental microbial community dynamics, discovering novel genes, enzymes, pathways, and bioactive molecules with entirely new or improved biochemical functions along with diagnosis and monitoring of pathogens. However, significant challenges persist in the functional annotation. In future, innovation and enhancement in technologies and methodologies, will lead to less sequencing cost. Furthermore, data integration using many technological platforms can 20better understand metagenomes and subsequently characterize complex microbiomes and manipulate communities to accomplish better results for agriculture, environmental sustainability, and health. This chapter highlights the procedures for extracting, amplifying, sequencing, and storing fungal DNA from environmental samples, various applications of metagenomics approaches and the role of bioinformatician in the metagenomic study.