1. culturing bioluminescent bacteria dead fish, i love you, but you’re bringing me down

2. bacterial bioluminescence Is interesting Diverse Vibrios in the sea Goal: to isolate bioluminescent bacteria for further study

3. strategy Bioluminescent bacteria are present throughout marine environments Bioluminescence is detectable when cells are present at high density Therefore: make bacteria grow to induce luminescence, pick them out

4. Seawater complete media –Artificial seawater, bacto tryptone, yeast extract, glycerol, agar

5. Photo courtesy S. Russell

6. How do we improve yields? Sample from enriched locations Improve culturability (great plate count anomaly) –In situ culturing with diffusion chambers? D’Onofrio et al (2010) Chemistry & Biology. 17(3):256-264

7. How to improve yields? (cont’d) More selective media, or bait? –chemotaxis –Non-symbiosis-related functions of bioluminescence? Improve detection on plate

8. the end