Question

You are working on a research project in which you treated a bacterial culture with a newly developed antibiotic, and you need to be able to distinguish between the number of living and dead cells after antibiotic application. You have access to fluorescence-based techniques.

Which method would you use

a.) Turbidity

b.) Pour plate method

c.) A Petroff-Hausser chamber

d.) Viability stain

Answer 1

d.) Viability stain

Step-by-step explanation:

For distinguishing between living and dead bacterial cells, the best method among the ones given be the viability stain. This technique uses fluorescent dyes, such as propidide or SYTO 9, to selectively stain dead cells while leaving living cells unstained. These stains can be visualized under a fluorescence microscope or quantified using flow cytometry. Other techniques such as Turbidity, Pour plate method, and A Petroff-Hausser chamber provide information about the total number of cells but do not distinguish between living and dead cells.