Winson M K, Davey H M
Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DD, United Kingdom.
Methods. 2000 Jul;21(3):231-40. doi: 10.1006/meth.2000.1003.
The application of flow cytometry to microorganisms is as old as the technique itself, but it has historically been underexploited for microbial applications. This is now being reversed and microbiologists are ideally placed to benefit from recent technological advances. While earlier papers demonstrated the use of flow cytometry for studies of viability and taxonomy, recent developments in bioinformatics and reporter gene technologies are leading to novel applications in microbiology. Variants of green fluorescent protein have been used for the study of conditional microbial gene regulation in medically important host-pathogen interactions and fluorescence-activated cell sorting is being applied to the isolation of novel mutants in directed evolution studies. This paper reviews the reasons for the delay in the application of flow cytometry to microbial problems, the range of applications, and their limitations and considers the progress made in developing new strategies for use in microbiological investigations.
流式细胞术应用于微生物的历史与该技术本身一样悠久，但在历史上它在微生物应用方面一直未得到充分利用。现在这种情况正在扭转，微生物学家处于从近期技术进步中受益的理想位置。虽然早期的论文展示了流式细胞术在活力和分类学研究中的应用，但生物信息学和报告基因技术的最新进展正引领着微生物学的新应用。绿色荧光蛋白的变体已被用于研究医学上重要的宿主 - 病原体相互作用中的条件性微生物基因调控，并且荧光激活细胞分选正应用于定向进化研究中新型突变体的分离。本文回顾了流式细胞术在微生物问题应用方面延迟的原因、应用范围及其局限性，并考虑了在开发用于微生物学研究的新策略方面所取得的进展。
