Quantification of bacterial fluorescence using independent calibrants.

ABSTRACT: Fluorescent reporters are commonly used to quantify activities or properties of both natural and engineered cells. Fluorescence is still typically reported only in arbitrary or normalized units, however, rather than in units defined using an independent calibrant, which is problematic for scientific reproducibility and even more so when it comes to effective engineering. In this paper, we report an interlaboratory study showing that simple, low-cost unit calibration protocols can remedy this situation, producing comparable units and dramatic improvements in precision over both arbitrary and normalized units. Participants at 92 institutions around the world measured fluorescence from E. coli transformed with three engineered test plasmids, plus positive and negative controls, using simple,

SUBMITTER: Beal J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6013168 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature