In article <gjs.1342.13086B84 at aber.ac.uk> gjs at aber.ac.uk (Gaz) writes:
>>> Can you pick up a bacterium. I am wondering if any of the technology in
>>> medicine or biology could be used to separate out a rod from a mixture of
>>> cocci and sperm. Can't be done by culture. E-mail: BCapstone at aol.com
>What do you mean by "pick up". Cells can be sorted by flow cytometry
>techniques quite easily (we do it). A mixture as different as that stated
>above would be very easy to sort. Once sorted they would be available for any
>other manipulation/technique you might want to carry out.
It's true that you could separate the cells by flow cytometry BUT (there's
always a but) it will depend on how many bacteria of the type you want are
present as a proportion of the total cell load. Flow cytometers are usually
operated with an analysis rate of 1000-10,000 cells/sec (typically the lower
number for sorting applications). So if the cell type you are interested in is
present at less than 1/10,000 or so you would have problems using this
technique.
Would it be possible to enrich for the bacteria for example by selectively
lysing the sperm, leaving the bacteria intact (this approach has been used to
detect bacteria in blood by flow cytometry where the starting concentration
from memory was around 10^9 blood cells and 10-100 bacteria /ml).
Alternatively it may be possible to separate the bacteria from the sperm by
their density difference. Such preliminary steps would then give you a better
chance of separation by flow cytometry.
Once you have an appropriate sample it is indeed possible to take a mixed cell
suspension and drop a single cell of the type you require into (for example) a
well of a microtitre plate or to put most (up to 99% recovery has been
reported) of the cells of your selected type into a collection tube for
further analysis.
Hope some of the above ramblings are useful...
Haze.
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Hazel Davey (hlr at aber.ac.uk)
For my flow cytometry web page : http://144.124.112.37/home.htm
For other web pages incl. Welsh + Beer use : http://144.124.112.37/index.htm
For pictures and software : anonymous ftp to 144.124.112.37
