Strategy for discovering protist – bacterial interactions in the ocean (IMAGE)
Caption
Strategy for discovering protist – bacterial interactions in the ocean. The strategy relied on working at-sea where uncultivated cells could be interrogated without any form of fixation. The cartoon shows the approach, moving from the upper left corner clockwise. The active phagocytic vacuoles of uncultivated predatory protists were illuminated with fluorescent dye(s) and the unique emission from these stains was used to discriminate the predatory protists from other microbes and photosynthetic protists (phytoplankton). This involved use of light scatter signatures and autofluorescence optimized to select and exclude photosynthetic protists and other microbes. After sorting into individual wells with a variety of controls (see Method Details) plates were frozen until subsequent steps depicted in the cartoon. From Wittmers et al., Cell Host & Microbe, 2025.
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From Wittmers et al., Cell Host & Microbe, 2025 (Alex Worden Lab, MBL).
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