Department of Chemical Biology
Yang's Lab,Department of Chemical Biology, Xiamen University
Professor Yang
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Professor
Department of Chemical Biology, Xiamen University
Contact Information
Yang's LaboratoryRoom 532, Lujiaxi Building, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
Ph: +86 (0) 592-218 7601cyyang@xmu.edu.cn
Wei Wang's work has been accepted by Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry
2018-11-07 03:20:00
The traditional Gram-staining method, which was invented more than a century ago for differentiating bacteria as Gram-positive or Gram-negative, is still widely practiced in microbiology. However, Gram-staining suffers from several problems which can affect the accuracy of the diagnosis. Here, we report a new Gram-negative-specific fluorescent probe, which is based on a narrow-spectrum antibiotic, tridecaptin A1, and allows selective staining of Gram-negative in different fixed bacterial samples. Solid-phase peptide synthesis was used to prepare the tridecaptin A1-fluorophore conjugate with a single structure. Labeling selectivity of the probe towards Gram-negative bacteria was confirmed by testing against a panel of bacterial species. By combining the use of a previously reported Gram-positive-specific fluorescent probe, we then further showed the capability of the new probe in differential labeling of a number of complex bacterial samples, which included a mouse gut microbiota cultured in vitro, as well as microbiotas collected from the human oral cavity, soil, and crude oil. High labeling selectivity and coverage were observed in most samples. This method offers a new Gram-negative-specific probe with a defined structure, which allows facile fluorescence-based differentiation of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria for further microbial studies.
