Flow cytometry method for absolute counting and single-cell phenotyping of mycobacteria. Barr, D. A., Omollo, C., Mason, M., Koch, A., Wilkinson, R. J, Lalloo, D. G, Meintjes, G., Mizrahi, V., Warner, D. F, & Davies, G. Scientific Reports, 11:18661, Nature Publishing Group, sep, 2021.
Flow cytometry method for absolute counting and single-cell phenotyping of mycobacteria [link]Paper  doi  abstract   bibtex   
Detection and accurate quantitation of viable Mycobacterium tuberculosis is fundamental to understanding mycobacterial pathogenicity, tuberculosis (TB) disease progression and outcomes; TB transmission; drug action, efficacy and drug resistance. Despite this importance, methods for determining numbers of viable bacilli are limited in accuracy and precision owing to inherent characteristics of mycobacterial cell biology—including the tendency to clump, and “differential” culturability—and technical challenges consequent on handling an infectious pathogen under biosafe conditions. We developed an absolute counting method for mycobacteria in liquid cultures using a bench-top flow cytometer, and the low-cost fluorescent dyes Calcein-AM (CA) and SYBR-gold (SG). During exponential growth CA + cell counts are highly correlated with CFU counts and can be used as a real-time alternative to simplify the accurate standardisation of inocula for experiments. In contrast to CFU counting, this method can detect and enumerate cell aggregates in samples, which we show are a potential source of variance and bias when using established methods. We show that CFUs comprise a sub-population of intact, metabolically active mycobacterial cells in liquid cultures, with CFU-proportion varying by growth conditions. A pharmacodynamic application of the flow cytometry method, exploring kinetics of fluorescent probe defined subpopulations compared to CFU is demonstrated. Flow cytometry derived Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) time-kill curves differ for rifampicin and kanamycin versus isoniazid and ethambutol, as do the relative dynamics of discrete morphologically-distinct subpopulations of bacilli revealed by this high-throughput single-cell technique.
@article{Barr2021a,
abstract = {Detection and accurate quantitation of viable Mycobacterium tuberculosis is fundamental to understanding mycobacterial pathogenicity, tuberculosis (TB) disease progression and outcomes; TB transmission; drug action, efficacy and drug resistance. Despite this importance, methods for determining numbers of viable bacilli are limited in accuracy and precision owing to inherent characteristics of mycobacterial cell biology—including the tendency to clump, and “differential” culturability—and technical challenges consequent on handling an infectious pathogen under biosafe conditions. We developed an absolute counting method for mycobacteria in liquid cultures using a bench-top flow cytometer, and the low-cost fluorescent dyes Calcein-AM (CA) and SYBR-gold (SG). During exponential growth CA + cell counts are highly correlated with CFU counts and can be used as a real-time alternative to simplify the accurate standardisation of inocula for experiments. In contrast to CFU counting, this method can detect and enumerate cell aggregates in samples, which we show are a potential source of variance and bias when using established methods. We show that CFUs comprise a sub-population of intact, metabolically active mycobacterial cells in liquid cultures, with CFU-proportion varying by growth conditions. A pharmacodynamic application of the flow cytometry method, exploring kinetics of fluorescent probe defined subpopulations compared to CFU is demonstrated. Flow cytometry derived Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Gu{\'{e}}rin (BCG) time-kill curves differ for rifampicin and kanamycin versus isoniazid and ethambutol, as do the relative dynamics of discrete morphologically-distinct subpopulations of bacilli revealed by this high-throughput single-cell technique.},
author = {Barr, David A. and Omollo, Charles and Mason, Mandy and Koch, Anastasia and Wilkinson, Robert J and Lalloo, David G and Meintjes, Graeme and Mizrahi, Valerie and Warner, Digby F and Davies, Gerry},
doi = {10.1038/s41598-021-98176-5},
file = {:C$\backslash$:/Users/01462563/AppData/Local/Mendeley Ltd./Mendeley Desktop/Downloaded/Barr et al. - 2021 - Flow cytometry method for absolute counting and single-cell phenotyping of mycobacteria(2).pdf:pdf},
issn = {2045-2322},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
keywords = {Applied microbiology,Bacteriology,Clinical microbiology,Infectious diseases,Microbiology,OA,OA{\_}PMC,fund{\_}ack,original},
mendeley-tags = {OA,OA{\_}PMC,fund{\_}ack,original},
month = {sep},
pages = {18661},
pmid = {34545154},
publisher = {Nature Publishing Group},
title = {{Flow cytometry method for absolute counting and single-cell phenotyping of mycobacteria}},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-98176-5},
volume = {11},
year = {2021}
}

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