My aim is to visualize the DNA inside a bacterial cell, and the stains I have previously used all bind to histones or needed to be injected into the cell, and that's not possible with a small bacterium.
Yes, Like Andreas Nerlich said DAPI and HOECHST work very well, both are blue which if you want to do time-lapses and such you have to play with concentrations and exposure due to the toxicity of the intense blue light. But it works. Another more complex possibility is creating fluorescent protein fusions to DNA binding proteins, but that is dependent on your final objective.
About Propidium iodide it does not stain DNA in live cells unless you use high amounts (it does not goes through the membrane of live cells), for that you have the live stain SYTO® 9.
Can I ask Gus and Andreas a question? [not sure about etiquette here, bit of a newbie on ResearchGate] Do you know if acridine dyes, such as acridine orange and so on stain the DNA in living bacteria?
Thanks for the reference Andreas, just been reading it. And yes, as you say, the AO does stain live bacteria within live macrophages. So now I need to find out if other dyes of this type have been seen to do this ... guess I'd better put up a ResearchGate question! Never done that before ... so I will now attempt it.
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