ABSTRACT
Albert Mas and M. Jesús Torija
Chapter Authors:
Albert Mas (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0763-1679" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0763-1679)
M. Jesús Torija (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6419-0745" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6419-0745)
The research in microbiology has made giant steps in recent years, the first being the application of molecular methods in additional to the classical methods. This allowed the identification of the different microorganisms to be based more on the information contained in the nucleic acids rather than the physiological responses to different media. Thus, the identification became faster and more reliable. The following step was the determination of different cell states when cells are not able to grow on plates, so the use of culture-independent methods is a requisite. As a final step of these methods, next generation sequencing has been recently developed to provide a very inclusive analytical method, increasing two or three orders of magnitude the identified population from a given sample. This methodological evolution has also been applied to study the taxonomy and ecology of acetic acid bacteria. This chapter presents the results of the different studies in which this methodological evolution has yielded a considerable advancement in the knowledge of this group of microorganisms.
