Hi Hani

I'm working with enrichments that I have grown in the lab in a liquid medium containing the rock material that they were isolated from. So communities of microbes.

Something like meta transcriptomics and meta proteomics would be a good direction, but also very time consuming and expensive. I want some simple assays that I can do on my lab bench that give some information on phenotypes (relevant to geomicrobiology, so acid production, siderophore production, mineral dissolution) of these communities.  

Toby

Hi Toby,

For the mineral weathering test you could also do microplates with biotite. Briefly, you prepare microplates with biotite, inoculate them and then measure the pH change and the iron released (with Bromocresol green and Ferrospectral). You can find the protocol in the following publications:

Uroz S, et al. 2007. Effect of the mycorrhizosphere on the genotypic and

metabolic diversity of the bacterial communities involved in mineral

weathering in a forest soil. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 73:3019–3027

Lepleux et al., 2012. Correlation of the abundance of Betaproteobacteria on Mineral surfaces with mineral weathering in forest soils. Appl. Env. Microb. 78(19):7114

Hope this help,

Best,

Cendrella