The most fundamental questions such as whether a cell is alive, in the sense of being able to divide or to form a colony, may sometimes be very hard to answer, since even axenic microbial cultures… (More)
Many technologies have been developed to help explain the function of genes discovered by systematic genome sequencing. At present, transcriptome and proteome studies dominate large-scale functional… (More)
One element of classical systems analysis treats a system as a black or grey box, the inner structure and behaviour of which can be analysed and modelled by varying an internal or external condition,… (More)
Determination of microbial viability by the plate count method is routine in microbiology laboratories worldwide. However, limitations of the technique, particularly with respect to environmental… (More)
The deltaproteobacterium Myxococcus xanthus predates upon members of the soil microbial community by secreting digestive factors and lysing prey cells. Like other Gram-negative bacteria, M. xanthus… (More)
Using competition experiments in continuous cultures grown in different nutrient environments (glucose limited, ammonium limited, phosphate limited and white grape juice), we identified genes that… (More)
The equations that describe the magnitude of the p-dielectric dispersion of biological cell suspensions are introduced. It is then demonstrated how this magnitude can be used to monitor cellular… (More)
A high proportion of Micrococcus luteus cells in cultures which had been starved for 3 to 6 months lost the ability to grow and form colonies on agar plates but could be resuscitated from their… (More)
Flow cytometric monitoring of propidium iodide (PI) uptake is a well-established and rapid method for monitoring cell death and is used on the basis that the intact membrane of viable cells excludes… (More)