[Histonet] biofilms

[Gayle Callis]

Since the biofilm consists of bacteria inside a polymer, some kind of
polysaccharide or whatever the film consists of, most people do some type
of bacterial stain.  Our Center for Biofilm Engineering has done
fluorescent staining using various types of fluorophores specific for
bacteria, although I do not recall what it was called, and came from
Molecular Probes. There have also done immunofluorescent, ISH and worked
with bacteria expressing eGFP.

I get the impression, fluorescence methods are by far the most popular due
to the unique structure of biofilm and we could stain with toluidine blue.
This stain will demonstrate bacteria and tissue components IF your biofilm
is in tissue. You could even try a Giemsa stain. The work we did was for
Phil Stewart where we  developed a snap freezing method prior to
cryosectioning that removed the film so it was sandwiched between layers of
OCT, cryosectioned and stained. 

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Gayle Callis
MT,HT,HTL(ASCP)
Research Histopathology Supervisor
Veterinary Molecular Biology 
Montana State University - Bozeman
PO Box 173610
Bozeman MT 59717-3610
406 994-6367 (lab with voice mail)
406 994-4303 (FAX)