We congratulate Hari for being awarded the third place in a photo competition organized by the Cluster of Excellence Balance of the Microverse!
The image shows a mix of bacterial species (Bacillus sp., Streptomyces sp., some kind of Actinobacteria and also γ-Proteobacteria) that are fluorescently labelled using the technique fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) applied to microbial cells. The image is representative of a polymicrobial community. Since there are different fluorescent signals, it looks like the bacteria are attending a “neon party”. FISH is a powerful tool for differentiating bacteria based on phylogeny. We use fluorescently labelled short oligonucleotides (or probes) that target complementary sequences in the genome of bacteria.
Find more details about the award under this link.
Image credit: Photo of award winners taken by Juliane Seeber