Fundamentals of Computational and High-Throughput Approaches in DNA Research

The evolution of species has been the only constant on this planet Earth, posing challenging questions despite the advancements in science and technology. Ever-increasing microbial diversity due to genetic rearrangements has transformed the current understanding of co-evolution. Although serendipity has always played the role of facilitator, not all the success could be attributed to it. Too minute are the microbes that identifying them had been such a daunting task. It requires one to first isolate them in pure individual colonies, which is a skill to possess. The labor-intensive, less productive, cumbersome, and challenging genotype–phenotype inference makes the job more difficult. Obtaining a pure microbial strain is so crucial that there has been a paradigm shift in the way these individual bacteria are being isolated with more sophisticated methods, highlighting the transition from traditional to modern approaches. Throughout this chapter a fundamental understanding of the different computational and high-throughput approaches will be discussed in an unambiguous manner for the benefit of the novice learner.