Recent advances in functional genomics and proteomics of plant associated microbes

Research in soil microbiology has concerned the determination of the presence of gene sequences so as to assess microbial diversity rather than the determination of gene expression. Generally these molecular techniques are based on the specific amplification of the target nucleic acid by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with either restriction analysis or separation by denaturing or conformational properties of the resulting amplicons (Lynch et al. 2004). On the other hand microbial activities in soil have been neasured by crassical techniques such as those for determining soil respiration, enzyme activities, N rnineralization, adenylate energy charge, leucine and thymidine incorporation, etc., with no idea of gene expression. The rhizosphere effects on microbial diversity and activity are discussed in chap. 14 of this book.