Suitability of lectin binding studies for the characterization of redox-active microbial environmental biofilms

Title data

Ingino, Pablo ; Tiew, Kai Hao ; Obst, Martin:
Suitability of lectin binding studies for the characterization of redox-active microbial environmental biofilms.
In: AMB Express. Vol. 12 (2022) . - 140.
ISSN 2191-0855
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13568-022-01479-7

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Abstract in another language

Aquatic environmental microbial biofilms grow in a broad range of redox environments from oxic to methano- genic, and they often also establish internal redox gradients. In technical applications, biofilms are also subjected to controlled redox conditions. Studies on biofilms often make use of fluorescence microscopic imaging techniques together with lectin binding analysis to gain insights into structure, composition, and functions of the biofilms. Here we studied the direct influence of redox potentials on fluorescence lectin binding analyses (FLBA) for two commonly used lectin-fluorophore conjugates. An effect of the electrical potential on signal intensity was observed and found to be statistically significant. The signal intensity changes however, remained within the range of a few percent total. A significant drop in intensity was only observed for extremely oxidizing potentials, typically not found under envi- ronmental conditions. Our results showed that the fluorophore itself and not the lectin binding to the respective gly- coconjugate causes fluorescence changes. The two tested lectin-fluorophores are shown to be suitable for studying the distribution and composition of EPS in environmental biofilms or technical applications and under varying redox conditions.