Microbial Community Dynamics and Plant Phenomics with Single-Cell Gene Expression and Imaging Mass Spectrometry
EMSL Project ID
49162
Abstract
The inherent heterogeneity of biological systems, including microbial communities or cell populations, limits the questions that can be resolved by averaged cell population measurements, which lump the behavior of an entire population of cells or organisms into a single average value. Population measurements often identify most abundant or robust processes while masking molecular details and variability between cells. It is therefore possible that the processes deduced from the whole population average are, in actuality, not employed by any of the individuals within the population. The goal of this proposal is to establish new approaches using existing EMSL instruments to enable the investigation of individual cells within complex cell populations. The new approaches will be applied to: 1) Quantify the expression of multiple genes in individual cells from complex microbial communities in high throughput to understand the metabolic and regulatory principles underlying the function of the community as a whole, 2) Image plant tissues and their colonizing microbial communities in situ to understand mass and energy fluxes and identify the critical players at the cellular and molecular levels with sub-micrometer spatial resolution. The novel approaches will be applied to additional questions relevant to BER and EMSL’s Science Themes, as well as plant phenomics, to decipher interactions underlying the function of complex microbial communities in C cycling, biomass degradation, plant resistance, or the release of volatile organic compounds.
Project Details
Start Date
2015-11-23
End Date
2016-09-30
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Team Members