Digital Holographic Microscopy, a Method for Detection of Microorganisms in Plume Samples from Enceladus and Other Icy Worlds.

ABSTRACT: Detection of extant microbial life on Earth and elsewhere in the Solar System requires the ability to identify and enumerate micrometer-scale, essentially featureless cells. On Earth, bacteria are usually enumerated by culture plating or epifluorescence microscopy. Culture plates require long incubation times and can only count culturable strains, and epifluorescence microscopy requires extensive staining and concentration of the sample and instrumentation that is not readily miniaturized for space. Digital holographic microscopy (DHM) represents an alternative technique with no moving parts and higher throughput than traditional microscopy, making it potentially useful in space for detection of extant microorganisms provided that sufficient numbers of cells can be collected. Because sampl

SUBMITTER: Bedrossian M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5610429 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature