Multicolor filming of bacterial life.

• Position: Diagnostics

A revolutionary method for coloring the cell wall of bacterial cells to determine how they grow, in turn providing a new, much-needed tool for the development of antibiotics, has been discovered by an international team of scientists, led by chemist Michael S. VanNieuwenhze and biologist Yves Brun of Indiana University, Bloomington. This is expected to impact broadly basic and applied research tied to understanding, controlling, or preventing bacterial cell growth in specific environments.

"Understanding the mechanisms controlling bacterial cell growth and shape is of tremendous importance in any area where we seek strategies for controlling bacteria, be it for the eradication of pathogens from the human body or the improvement of bacterial growth in bioremediation and industrial processes," VanNieuwenhze explains. "Now, with the development of this one-step method to identify the zones of growth in bacterial cells, we have a dramatically improved tool kit to understand the basic mechanisms of bacterial growth that will directly enable the development of antibacterial strategies."

In a paper published in Angewandte Chemie, the authors describe the first direct and universal approach for labeling peptidoglycan, the mesh-like polymer of peptides and sugars that form the cell wall in diverse bacteria. Their method exploits the tolerance of cells for incorporating unnatural Damino acid-based fluorescent dyes of various sizes and functionalities. The researchers found that these nontoxic dyes preferentially label the sites where the peptidoglycan is synthesized, enabling fine spatiotemporal tracking of cell wall dynamics.

"This method will also enhance our understanding of how bacterial growth is influenced by environmental changes, for example, during the development of the...