Microbes and Environments
Online ISSN : 1347-4405
Print ISSN : 1342-6311
ISSN-L : 1342-6311
Volume 38, Issue 5
Special issue: JST-ERATO Nomura Microbial Community Control Project Part 2
Displaying 1-1 of 1 articles from this issue
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  • Kohei Takahashi, Xiaojie Li, Tatsuki Kunoh, Ryo Nagasawa, Norio Takesh ...
    Article type: Minireview
    2023 Volume 38 Issue 5 Article ID: ME22089
    Published: 2023
    Released on J-STAGE: March 23, 2023
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS FULL-TEXT HTML

    Microorganisms develop into communities in nearly every environmental niche, which is typically replete with micrometer-scale gaps and features. In each of these habitats, microorganisms adapt to and are affected by their physical environment. Conventional culture methods use glass bottom dishes or millimeter-scale flow cells, which poorly mimic the complexity of natural micrometer-scale environments; therefore, the limitations associated with the creation of microbe-scale environments with granularity hinder the ability to examine their ecological behavior. Microfluidics is a tool that is increasingly being used to study microorganisms because it enables the manipulation of micrometer-scale flows while simultaneously facilitating real-time and live-cell imaging. In this review, we discuss several insights into the behavior of bacteria and fungi that were gained through the adoption of microfluidics to control complex micrometer-scale environments. We also discuss the potential of the increased adoption of this tool.

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