03/01/2011
Measuring Chemical Changes Inside Living Cells
Summary
Understanding how microbes adapt to changing chemical environments is a critical aspect of using them to solve DOE challenges. With synchrotron radiation-based Fourier transform infrared microscopy at the Advanced Light Source, researchers tracked the chemistry of living Desulfovibrio vulgaris cells in real time. The ability to make these dynamic measurements continuously inside selected living cells dramatically increases the usefulness and reliability of information traditionally derived from cells that have been killed and broken apart.
References
Holman, H.-Y., et al. 2009. “Real-Time Molecular Monitoring of Chemical Environment in Obligate Anaerobes During Oxygen Adaptive Response,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 106, 12599–604.