Confocal microscope image showing insect immune cells (green) containing fluorescently labeled E.coli (red). Credit: University of BathFrom Live Science:
In a starring role for E. coli, researchers have developed a new technique to make movies of bacteria as they infect their victims and are consumed by the host's immune cells.
The movies mark the first time that scientists have been able to look at bacteria infecting living organisms in real time, according to the researchers. Most studies of bacterial infections are preformed after the host has died.
The scientists, from the University of Bath and the University of Exeter in the UK, tested out their movie-making method on developing fruit fly embryos. They injected fluorescently tagged bacteria into the embryos and observed how the microbes interacted with the insect's immune cells, called hemocytes, using time-lapse confocal microscopy, an imaging technique. They used two types of bacteria for the study Escherichia coli and Photorhabdus asymbiotica.
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