Analysis of Microbial Cells at the Single Cell Level

Cultures of microbial cells were traditionally viewed as uniform populations, which could be adequately described by analysing either the culture supernatant or a lysate of all the cells in the population. However, with the advent of flow cytometry and image analysis it became increasingly clear that even pure populations derived from a single cell are far from homogeneous. In recent years new methods for single cell analysis have improved our possibilities for in depth analysis of what is happening in cells and why. Genetic probes and markers such as luminescent fusion proteins, the detection of molecular interactions by Fluorescence Energy Transfer and methods that analyse the activation status of cells or even specific proteins are just a few examples. Clearly cytomics, if defined as the global analysis of cell function at the cellular level, becomes an important addition to the available tools in cell biology. Not only does it link all these methods by looking at the outcome of their interaction as a cellular response, it also emphasises the interdisciplinary nature of cell science. Due to the commercialisation of small, easy-to-use and cheap instruments these methods have now found their way into the routine lab for the analysis of cellular function, cell-cell interactions, the dynamics, as well as the heterogeneity of populations. The present meeting will follow up the two previous ones by presenting new developments and their application to the analysis of bacterial, yeast, fungal and animal cells in basic research, biotechnology and the environment.