Direction of flagellar rotation in bacterial cell envelopes

Cell envelopes with functional flagella, isolated from wild-type strains of Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium by formation of spheroplasts with penicillin and subsequent osmotic lysis, demonstrate counterclockwise (CCW)-biased rotation when energized with an electron donor for respiration, DL-lactate. Since the direction of flagellar rotation in bacteria is central to the expression of chemotaxis, we studied the cause of this bias. Our main observations were: (i) spheroplasts acquired a clockwise (CW) bias if instead of being lysed they were further incubated with penicillin; (ii) repellents temporarily caused CW rotation of tethered bacteria and spheroplasts but not of their derived cell envelopes; (iii) deenergizing CW-rotating cheV bacteria by KCN or arsenate treatment caused CCW bias; (iv) cell envelopes isolated from CW-rotating cheC and cheV mutants retained the CW bias, unlike envelopes isolated from cheB and cheZ mutants, which upon cytoplasmic release lost this bias and acquired CCW bias; and (v) an inwardly directed, artificially induced proton current rotated tethered envelopes in CCW direction, but an outwardly directed current was unable to rotate the envelopes. It is concluded that (i) a cytoplasmic constituent is required for the expression of CW rotation (or repression of CCW rotation) in strains which are not defective in the switch; (ii) in the absence of this cytoplasmic constituent, the motor is not reversible in such strains, and it probably is mechanically constricted so as to permit CCW sense of rotation only; (iii) the requirement of CW rotation for ATP is not at the level of the motor or the switch but at one of the preceding functional steps of the chemotaxis machinery; (iv) the cheC and cheV gene products are associated with the cytoplasmic membrane; and (v) direct interaction between the switch-motor system and the repellent sensors is improbable.     

Isolation of bacterial strains that produce the endocrine disruptor,octylphenol diethoxylates,in paddy fields

Topsoil samples were collected from 36 different paddy fields in West Japan. Each soil sample was incubated with a basal salt-medium containing 0.2% OPPEO. Twelve samples possessed OPPEO-degrading activity, from which twelve cultures of OPPEO-degrading bacteria were isolated. The isolated bacteria grew on a medium containing 0.2% OPPEO as the sole carbon source, and OP2EO and OP3EO were accumulated in the medium under aerobic conditions. OP1EO and octylphenol, which have often been identified in surface water together with OP2EO, were not observed in this experiment. The bacterial isolates were gram negative and tentatively identified as Pseudomonas putida (10 isolates) and Burkholderia cepacia (one isolate) by BIOLOG and 16S rDNA RFLP analyses.     

Sequential immunofluorescence staining and image analysis for detection of large numbers of antigens in individual cell nuclei.

BACKGROUND: Visualization of more than one antigen by multicolor immunostaining is often desirable or even necessary to explore spatial and temporal relationships of functional significance. Previously presented staining protocols have been limited to the visualization of three or four antigens. METHODS: Immunofluorescence staining was performed both on slices of formalin-fixed tissue and on cells in culture. Images of the stained material were recorded using digital imaging fluorescence microscopy. The primary and secondary antibodies, as well as the fluorophores, were thereafter removed using a combination of denaturation and elution techniques. After removal of the fluorescence stain, a new immunofluorescence staining was performed, visualizing a new set of antigens. The procedure was repeated up to three times. A method for image registration combined with segmentation, extraction of data, and cell classification was developed for efficient and objective analysis of the image data. RESULTS: The results show that immunofluorescence stains in many cases can be repeatedly removed without major effects on the antigenicity of the sample. CONCLUSIONS: The concentration of at least six different antigens in each cell can thus be measured semiquantitatively using sequential immunofluorescence staining and the described image analysis techniques. The number of antigens that can be visualized in a single sample is considerably increased by the presented protocol.     

Statistical sampling of bacterial strains and its use in bacterial diversity measurement

The cultural bacterial strains of two sediment samples, i.e., 260 strains, were submitted to numerical taxonomy to determine ecological profiles. From these profiles several calculations of bacterial diversity were done with increasing number of strains (between 10 and 130). Studying 20–30 strains was sufficient to obtain a diversity of bacterial community.Number of tests could be reduced from 62 to 30 without any influence on bacterial diversity. Similarity between studied tests was shown by using numerical taxonomy.     

Observing growth and division of large numbers of individual bacteria by image analysis

We describe a method that enabled us to observe large numbers of individual bacterial cells during a long period of cell growth and proliferation. We designed a flow chamber in which the cells attached to a transparent solid surface. The flow chamber was mounted on a microscope equipped with a digital camera. The shear force of the flow removed the daughter cells, making it possible to monitor the consecutive divisions of a single cell. In this way, kinetic parameters and their distributions, as well as some physiological characteristics of the bacteria, could be analyzed based on more than 1,000 single-cell observations. The method which we developed enabled us to study the history effect on the distribution of the lag times of single cells.     

抗汉坦病毒等三种单克隆抗体细胞株的建立及分析应用

以纯化的病毒抗原加完全福氏佐剂,免疫BALB/c小鼠,再利用杂交瘤技术建立针对汉坦病毒、狂犬病毒及乙型脑炎病毒的单克隆抗体(McAb)细胞株,制备并提纯标记McAb,应用于各种实验和检测工作。结果获得了6株分泌抗汉坦病毒McAb杂交瘤细胞株、6株分泌抗狂犬病毒McAb杂交瘤细胞株、2株分泌抗乙型脑炎病毒McAb杂交瘤细胞株,共14株,并对它们的特性进行了分析。各McAb效价不尽相同,有的高达10-7,有的则不足10-3。各McAb亚型以IgG型为主,少数为IgM型;轻链以κ型为主,个别为λ型或阴性。McAb与纯化的病毒抗原有明显的特异性吸附(P<0.01)。有的McAb有相同的作用位点,有的McAb则没有,但与其它McAb有交叉反应。通过对McAb进行提纯和标记,建立了双抗体夹心ELISA法,用于病毒抗原的检测。实验表明获得的McAb有较好的生物学特性,可与相应的病毒抗原特异性结合,用于免疫学检测及其它多种用途。     

An ultrastructural comparison of the cell envelopes of selected strains of Nocardia asteroides and Nocardia brasiliensis

Growth curves were determined for three strains each ofNocardia asteroides andNocardia brasiliensis. Two strains ofN. brasiliensis and one strain ofN. asteroides had longer lag periods of growth than the remaining three strains. All strains had generation times of approximately 5.5 hours.The ultrastructure of the cell envelope of eachNocardia strain in early stationary phase growth was also examined. All the strains had typical trilaminar cell walls and cell membranes. The thickness of the cell wall layers, especially the inner peptidoglycan layer, varied from strain to strain. The inner layer of two strains ofN. brasiliensis and one strain ofN. asteroides was 12 nm or more in thickness, while that of the remaining three strains was 7 nm thick. These observed differences in growth patterns and/or thickness of the cell wall layers could be correlated to the varying degress of virulence as well as the divergent pathologies exhibited by these organisms.     

Screening of lysine-producing strains of brevibacterium with a rotating liquid culture system using a large number of micro-holes for individual cell cultivation

Summary With the technique of rotating liquid culture system in 7000 bottomless micro-holes, mutant strains having urease activity higher than that of the original strain were screened out in a medium with urea as a sole nitrogen source. A strain having a lysine yield of 12.5% and urease activity 20% higher than those of the original strain was isolated. The technique is suitable for screening strains where visual methods are available to estimate the amount of metabolite.     

A method for obtaining large numbers of trophozoites of avirulent strains of Toxoplasma gondii using an antibody to interferon-gamma

Injection of cysts of avirulent strains of T. gondii intraperitoneally into mice that were pretreated with monoclonal antibody against interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) provided more than 10(7) trophozoites of those strains. This method is suitable for obtaining large numbers of trophozoites of T. gondii strains that are avirulent for mice.     

Total numbers of glomeruli and individual glomerular cell types in the normal rat kidney

Summary Alterations in numbers of glomeruli and glomerular cells occur in various renal disorders. Although values for these parameters have previously been reported for several species, the estimates have often been biased due to assumptions regarding glomerular and/or nuclear size and shape. Other studies have used tedious serial-section reconstruction methods. In the present study, unbiased stereological methods were used to estimate total numbers of glomeruli and individual glomerular cell types in normal rats. The kidneys of seven adult Sprague-Dawley rats were perfused with 4% paraformaldehyde and 1% glutaraldehyde in phosphate buffer and embedded in either glycolmethacrylate (for light microscopy, LM) or Epon/Araldite (for transmission electron microscopy, TEM). Total glomerular number was estimated using an LM physical disector/fractionator combination; the total number of cells per average glomerulus was estimated using an LM optical disector/ Cavalieri combination; and TEM physical disectors were used to count individual cell types. The normal rat kidney was found to contain 31764±3667 (mean±SD) glomeruli. An average glomerulus contained 674±129 cells, of which 181±53 were epithelial cells (podocytes), 248±53 were endothelial cells, and 245±45 were mesangial cells. An average renal corpuscle contained 117±27 parietal epithelial cells. Following sectioning and staining, less than 6.5 h was needed to obtain the above estimates for a single animal, with coefficients of variation (SD as a percent of the mean) ranging from 10% to 25%. The unbiased stereological methods used in the present study constitute an unbiased, precise and cost-efficient set of quantitative tools for assessing glomerular morphology in health and disease.     

Enumeration of bacterial cell numbers by amplified firefly bioluminescence without cultivation

We recently developed a novel bioluminescent enzymatic cycling assay for ATP and AMP with the concomitant use of firefly luciferase and pyruvate orthophosphate dikinase (PPDK), where AMP and pyrophosphate produced from ATP by firefly luciferase were converted back into ATP by PPDK. Background luminescence derived from contaminating ATP and AMP in the reagent was reduced using adenosine phosphate deaminase which degrades ATP, ADP, and AMP, resulting in constant and highly amplified bioluminescence with low background luminescence. To detect bacterial cells without cultivation, we applied the above bioluminescent enzymatic cycling reagent to rapid microbe detection system. ATP spots (0.31-5.0 amol/spot) at the level of a single bacterial cell were detected with 5 min signal integration, signifying that integrated luminescence was amplified 43 times in comparison to traditional ATP bioluminescence. Consequently, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Lactobacillus brevis in beer were detected without cultivation. Significant correlation was observed between the number of signal spots obtained using this novel system and the colony-forming units observed with the conventional colony-counting method (R(2)=0.973).     

Fast and efficient egg collection and antibody staining from large numbers of Drosophila strains

 The genetic dissection of any developmental processes requires mutagenesis protocols and the subsequent phenotypic screen of the established mutant strains. Whereas external structures such as the Drosophila cuticle are relatively easy to score without the need of further manipulations, the analyses of internal structures such as the nervous system often requires the use of antibodies to detect abnormalities. Here we describe an improved method to: (a) simultaneously collect Drosophila eggs from large number of fly strains, (b) process them fast for antibody staining and (c) facilitate rapid subsequent screening. Received: 5 February 1997 / Accepted: 23 March 1997     

The use of molecular biological methods for the individual characterization of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains

The expediency of using molecular biological methods for the evaluation of M. tuberculosis clinical strains by individual genetic certification of circulating M. tuberculosis strains has been substantiated. Considerable genetic heterogeneity of M. tuberculosis strains isolated from patients in different regions of the Russian Federation has been established; this heterogeneity is due to the presence of differences in the number of copies (5-26) of element IS6110 in M. tuberculosis cells.     

Recombinant DNA techniques: storage and screening of cDNA libraries with large numbers of individual colonies from initial transformations

A typical cDNA library with a large number of initial transformants, plated in soft agarose, can be stored and shipped in 12% glycerol at -70 degrees C. To prepare the library for storage, the soft agarose layer is made into a paste and the agarose is removed by Sephadex G-25 filtration. This method of cDNA library storage does not alter the relative representation of the plasmids carried in the library. To achieve a very uniform distribution of colonies at high colony density, an aliquot of the cDNA library is diluted to 3000 to 10,000 colonies/ml. One milliliter of this suspension is evenly distributed on a nitrocellulose filter on an agar plate and air-dried. Filter copies are made and screened by published methods.     

Techniques for rapid biochemical screening of large numbers of cell clones

Mutant cell lines derived from a variety of organisms can be isolated when a sufficient number of clones are screened. We describe techniques which can be used to clone up to 10⁴ cells/h. The construction of a simple multiple pipet is outlined and its operation in conjunction with multitest culture trays and an efficient replicator is described. The techniques permit screening of any cells able to grow clonally in culture.