Detecting Bacteria in Wood using a Fluorescent Lipid Probe

Abstract

Abstract Wood cells have strong autofluorescence in a wide wavelength band due to lignin in the cell walls. The detection of microorganisms in wood is very difficult when using fluorescent microscopy because of interferences. We have recently developed fluorescent staining techniques to differentiate fungal hyphae from wood cell walls (Singh, et al., 1997; Xiao, et al., 1997). This study was aimed at developing fluorescent techniques to visualize bacteria in wood using confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). Nitrobenzoxadiazole glycerophosphoethanolamine (NBD-PE, Molecular Probes), a widely used membrane probe which accords strong fluorescence upon lipids, was compared with glutaraldehyde which had proved useful in our initial attempts to visualize fungal hyphae in wood because of the cell auto fluorescence it causes (Singh et al., 1997).