Stalking Mycobacterium bovis in the total environment: FLOW-FISH & FACS to detect, quantify, and sort metabolically active and quiescent cells in complex matrices.

Mycobacterium bovis causes tuberculosis (TB) at the human-wildlife-livestock interface. Environmental persistence of M. bovis excreted by infected hosts may cause indirect transmission to other animals.

When FLOW-FISH met FACS: Combining multiparametric, dynamic approaches for microbial single-cell research in the total environment.

In environmental microbiology, the ability to assess, in a high-throughput way, single-cells within microbial communities is key to understand their heterogeneity. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) uses fluorescently labeled oligonucleotide probes to detect, identify, and quantify single cells of specific taxonomic groups. The combination of Flow Cytometry (FLOW) with FISH (FLOW-FISH) enables high-throughput quantification of complex whole cell populations, which when associated with fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) enables sorting of target microorganisms.