I am interested in doing experiments at home related to PHA production.
First, I want to try if I may use a low-cost microscope alongside using the serial dilution technique to find out whether a soil sample contains microbes that can produce PHA.
But is it really possible if I only have the budget to buy a microscope with the following specification? It costs around $400.
40X-2500X, Trinocular Compound Lab Microscope with Double Layer Mechanical Stage, Siedentopf Head, Wide-Field 10X/25X Eyepieces
As the first step of my exploration, I am hoping I may use such a microscope to locate bacteria cells containing granules that look similar to PHA granules. My goal is to explore if I may develop a curriculum for K-12 to learn about bioplastics using low-cost equipments.
Thanks for the interest Yusuf Küçükağa
I guess I should my answer in a simpler form.
Can I use a 2500X microscope to study microbes sampe, so that I can separate PHA-producing microbes from others?
Dear Law,
I've recently read an article from R. Pei et al (2022)1, where they mentioned a recent microscope based PHA-accumulating bacteria identification 2,3. Unfortunately, I am not able access the second reference below, which I believe not published yet, where they should have explained the new microscope-based methodology. However, there are some detailed explanations in the third reference below, hope you can benefit.
1 Article Exploring the Limits of Polyhydroxyalkanoate Production by M...
2 Pei, R., et al. "Visualisation of polyhydroxyalkanoate accumulated in waste activated sludge." Environ. Sci. Technol (2022).
3 Article Quantification of Polyhydroxyalkanoate Accumulated in Waste ...
Thank you so much Küçükağa!
From the full text in your first link, I found that Pei et al. (2022) used a laser scanning microscope. Perhaps the second reference describes their methods in details. But it seems that doing analysis with the microscope I mentioned can be quite difficult.
Reference:
Pei, R., Estevez-Alonso, A., Ortiz-Seco, L., van Loosdrecht, M., Kleerebezem, R., & Werker, A. (2022). Exploring the Limits of Polyhydroxyalkanoate Production by Municipal Activated Sludge. Environmental Science & Technology, 56. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c03043
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Citations