am9b12169_si_002.avi (269.54 kB)
Download file“Basicles”: Microbial Growth and Production Monitoring in Giant Lipid Vesicles
media
posted on 2019-09-10, 16:47 authored by Petra Jusková, Yannick R. F. Schmid, Ariane Stucki, Steven Schmitt, Martin Held, Petra S. DittrichWe
present an optimized protocol to encapsulate bacteria inside giant
unilamellar lipid vesicles combined with a microfluidic platform for
real-time monitoring of microbial growth and production. The microfluidic
device allows us to immobilize the lipid vesicles and record bacterial
growth and production using automated microscopy. Moreover, the lipid
vesicles retain hydrophilic molecules and therefore can be used to
accumulate products of microbial biosynthesis, which we demonstrate
here for a riboflavin-producing bacterial strain. We show that stimulation
as well as inhibition of bacterial production can be performed through
the liposomal membrane simply by passive diffusion of inducing or
antibiotic compounds, respectively. The possibility to introduce as
well as accumulate compounds in liposomal cultivation compartments
represents great advantage over the current state of the art systems,
emulsion droplets, and gel beads. Additionally, the encapsulation
of bacteria and monitoring of individual lipid vesicles have been
accomplished on a single microfluidic device. The presented system
paves the way toward highly parallel microbial cultivation and monitoring
as required in biotechnology, basic research, or drug discovery.