Molecular and Computational Aspect of Microbial Bioprospection in Emerging Era

The emergence of high-throughput technologies like microarray and next-generation sequencing (NGS) has led to the accumulation of large biological data, laying the red carpet for biology in the big data era. The OMICs revolution, which provided global information about different properties of biomolecules at the minimal expense of time and resources ever possible, has successfully postulated itself as the torch-bearer in this grand welcome. With the importance of sustainability being the underlying principle, the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) approach has drawn significant attention. This approach focuses on employing microbial biodiversity for industrial processes that are sustainable and considerate to life and future generations. These processes use unique proteins/enzymes to produce finished products that were conventionally produced using chemicals. Bioprospection of extreme environments for such unique enzymes has been a hallmark of such processes, whether the discovery of thermophilic polymerases that revolutionized the PCR-based technologies or the common UV-protectants we apply on our faces today. These extremophiles have a plethora of answers to almost every desired trait with capability of easy scale-up compared to enzymes from higher life forms. This chapter provides an overview of OMIC technologies applied in the bioprospection of extreme niches with a special focus on applying bioinformatics in achieving such goals.