Dear fellow researchers, my team and I have obtained several images taken with SEM imaging technology to observe the infection of M13K07 phage in Ecoli SS320 (as part of the phage display experiment). However, since most of the researches published online regarding the imaging of phage M13 use TEM technology instead of SEM and it is also our first time using SEM, we are having a hard time confirming the infection and existence of reproduced phages.

Attached with the post are 2 images:

+ C2: image of a sample of the culture taken before the infection (the SS320 culture was grown for 2-3h beforehand)

+ P2: image of a sample of the infected culture (100ul phage suspension was added to 100ml of culture, infection time was 1h)

We have noticed that the infection-showing image has cells that are somewhat deformed, as if the phages are trying to break the membrane but we don't know if the phenomenon is due to other conditions that go along with the SEM technology (i.e loss of water due to drying process, physical impacts when preparing the samples, etc)

It will be a great help for us to learn whether the phages have truly infected the Ecoli cells via SEM imaging - which is the only imaging tech we currently have on hand.

Thank you all for your help.