Metagenomics research has been developed over the past decade to elucidate the genomes of the uncultured microorganisms with an aim of understanding microbial ecology. On the other hand, it has also been provoked by the increasing biotechnological demands for novel enzymes, antibiotic and signal mimics. The gut microbiota of insects plays crucial roles in the growth, development and environmental adaptation to the host insects. Very recently, the insect microbiota and their genomes (microbiome), isolated from insects were recognized as a major genetic resources for bio-processing industry. Consequently, the exploitation of insect gut microbiome using metagenomic approaches will enable us to find novel biocatalysts and to develop innovative strategies for identifying smart molecules for biotechnological applications. In this review, we discuss the critical footstep in extraction and purification of metagenomic DNA from insect gut, construction of metagenomic libraries and screening procedure for novel gene identification. Recent innovations and potential applications in bioprocess industries are highlighted.

Metagenomics research has been developed over the past decade to elucidate the genomes of the uncultured microorganisms with an aim of understanding microbial ecology. On the other hand, it has also been provoked by the increasing biotechnological demands for novel enzymes, antibiotic and signal mimics. The gut microbiota of insects plays crucial roles in the growth, development and environmental adaptation to the host insects. Very recently, the insect microbiota and their genomes (microbiome), isolated from insects were recognized as a major genetic resources for bio-processing industry. Consequently, the exploitation of insect gut microbiome using metagenomic approaches will enable us to find novel biocatalysts and to develop innovative strategies for identifying smart molecules for biotechnological applications. In this review, we discuss the critical footstep in extraction and purification of metagenomic DNA from insect gut, construction of metagenomic libraries and screening procedure for novel gene identification. Recent innovations and potential applications in bioprocess industries are highlighted.

In the past few decades,scientists from all over the world have taken a keen interest in novel functional units such as small regulatory RNAs,small open reading frames,pseudogenes,transposons,integrase binding attB/attP sites,repeat elements within the bacterial intergenic regions (IGRs) and in the analysis of those “junk” regions for genomic complexity.Here we have developed a web server,named Junker,to facilitate the in-depth analysis of IGRs for examining their length distribution,four-quadrant plots,GC percentage and repeat details.Upon selection of a particular bacterial genome,the physical genome map is displayed as a multiple loci with options to view any loci of interest in detail.In addition,an IGR statistics module has been created and implemented in the web server to analyze the length distribution of the IGRs and to understand the disordered grouping of IGRs across the genome by generating the four-quadrant plots.The proposed web server is freely available at the URL http://pranag.phy sics.iisc.ernet.in/junker/.