Heins AL, Johanson T, Han S, Lundin L, Carlquist M, Gernaey KV, Sørensen SJ, Eliasson Lantz A. Quantitative Flow Cytometry to Understand Population Heterogeneity in Response to Changes in Substrate Availability in
Escherichia coli and
Saccharomyces cerevisiae Chemostats.
Front Bioeng Biotechnol 2019;
7:187. [PMID:
31448270 PMCID:
PMC6691397 DOI:
10.3389/fbioe.2019.00187]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2019] [Accepted: 07/18/2019] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Microbial cells in bioprocesses are usually described with averaged parameters. But in fact, single cells within populations vary greatly in characteristics such as stress resistance, especially in response to carbon source gradients. Our aim was to introduce tools to quantify population heterogeneity in bioprocesses using a combination of reporter strains, flow cytometry, and easily comprehensible parameters. We calculated mean, mode, peak width, and coefficient of variance to describe distribution characteristics and temporal shifts in fluorescence intensity. The skewness and the slope of cumulative distribution function plots illustrated differences in distribution shape. These parameters are person-independent and precise. We demonstrated this by quantifying growth-related population heterogeneity of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Escherichia coli reporter strains in steady-state of aerobic glucose-limited chemostat cultures at different dilution rates and in response to glucose pulses. Generally, slow-growing cells showed stronger responses to glucose excess than fast-growing cells. Cell robustness, measured as membrane integrity after exposure to freeze-thaw treatment, of fast-growing cells was strongly affected in subpopulations of low membrane robustness. Glucose pulses protected subpopulations of fast-growing but not slower-growing yeast cells against membrane damage. Our parameters could successfully describe population heterogeneity, thereby revealing physiological characteristics that might have been overlooked during traditional averaged analysis.
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