Flow cytometric viability assessment of lactic acid bacteria starter cultures produced by fluidized bed drying.

For starter culture production, fluidized bed drying is an efficient and cost-effective alternative to the most frequently used freeze drying method. However, fluidized bed drying also poses damaging or lethal stress to bacteria. Therefore, investigation of impact of process variables and conditions on viability of starter cultures produced by fluidized bed drying is of major interest.

A flow cytometric method for viability assessment of Staphylococcus aureus and Burkholderia cepacia in mixed culture.

Mixed bacterial communities are commonly encountered in microbial infections of humans. Knowledge on the composition of species and viability of each species in these communities allows for a detailed description of the complexity of interspecies dynamics and contributes to the assessment of the severity of infections. Several assays exist for quantification of specific species in mixed communities, including analysis of quantitative terminal restriction fragment length polymorphisms.