Individual cell growth rates of marine bacteria, measured by bromodeoxyuridine incorporation

Abstract

AME Aquatic Microbial Ecology Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials AME 35:217-227 (2004) - doi:10.3354/ame035217 Individual cell growth rates of marine bacteria, measured by bromodeoxyuridine incorporation Koji Hamasaki1,2,*, Richard A. Long1,3, Farooq Azam1 1Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0202, USA 2Present address: Graduate School of Biosphere Science, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8528, Japan 3Present address: Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-3146, USA *Email: hamasaki@hiroshima-u.ac.jp ABSTRACT: We tested the application of 5-bromo-2¹-deoxyuridine (BrdU), a thymidine analogue that becomes incorporated into DNA during growth, to measure growth rates of individual marine bacteria cells. Immunocytochemical detection of BrdU incorporation into bacterial DNA has the potential for single-cell-based growth measurement. Optimized procedure for immunocytochemistry was applicable to 14 marine heterotrophic bacterial isolates belonging to γ-proteobacteria, α-proteobacteria, Cytophaga-Flavobacterium-Bacteroides (CFB) group and Gram-positive bacteria. The relationship between cell-specific fluorescence intensity and specific growth rate was linearly correlated among CFB group isolates, which indicated a potential of the method for quantitative measurement. Analysis of the detection limit indicated that bacteria with <1 d doubling time could be detected in 5 h incubations using bacterial assemblages in seawater. The method was also applied to visualize actively growing bacteria on phytoplankton detritus in seawater and was sensitive enough to test the variation in growth rate of natural bacterial assemblages in coastal waters using incubations of a few hours in duration. The method has the potential to yield insights into microspatial variability in bacterial growth rates in seawater. KEY WORDS: 5-bromo-2¹-deoxyuridine · Marine bacteria · Immunocytochemistry · Growth Full article in pdf format PreviousNextExport citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in AME Vol. 35, No. 3. Online publication date: May 19, 2004 Print ISSN: 0948-3055; Online ISSN: 1616-1564 Copyright © 2004 Inter-Research.