Surprises from looking at individual cells in the microbial world

Venue: Edificio Povo 2, via Sommarive nr. 9, Povo (Tn) - Room B101
 At 11.00 a.m.

• Shawn McGlynn - Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Ookayama, Tokyo, Japan.

Most investigations involving cells involve so many cells that individual cell behaviors are averaged over and cannot be resolved. Recently, we developed paired light microscopy: nanoSIMS techniques to link cell type and anabolic activity in microbial consortia, and to our surprise discovered what appears to be a new mode of inter-species interaction by direct electron transfer. In this talk, I will outline our approach for linking organism taxonomy, cellular activity, and spatial arrangement, as well as the current hypothesis of how electrons are exchanged between cells to accomplish a co-respiration (syntrophy). These approaches are applicable to other systems, and I hope to generate discussion towards this end.