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自然界微生物の検出法の開発

抄録

Microorganisms are beleaved to play essential roles in keeping terrestrial environment. This may be true in CELSS. However, the true properties of microorganisms in natural environments are not well understood due to the lack of suitable detection systems. A noble method for the exploration of terrestrial and extraterrestrial soil microorganisms, especially targeted for Mars, Space Station and CELSS, has been developed.
The method is based on the microscopic observation using fluorescence techniques. Microorganisms could be fluorescent by adsorption, enzymatic cleavage of extrinsic fluorescence chromophores and also by intrinsic chromophores. Since this technique requires no incubation, native microscopic ecology can also be observed. This technique is proved to be sufficient enough to detect almost all terrestrial microorganisms in natural environments and to classify the microorganisms depending on their physiological properties.