, 2004; Herndl et al., 2005; Alonso-Sáez & Gasol, 2007). selleck products The commonly used radiotracers are 3H, 14C, and 35S coupled to organic or inorganic compounds. In a recent study, 33P-labeled phosphate was successfully used to assess the bacterial groups contributing

to the phosphorus cycle (Longnecker et al., 2010). In the case of iron, the radioisotope 55Fe has been widely applied for autoradiographic analyses in cellular biology or biochemistry (Orlic, 1968; Parry & Blackett, 1973). By contrast, only two studies have thus far applied 55Fe microautoradiography to investigate the uptake of iron by different aquatic microorganisms on a single-cell level. Paerl (1982) demonstrated the feasibility of 55Fe microautoradiography with cultures of the nitrogen-fixing Cyanobacterium Anabaena spp. isolated from a eutrophic lake. The cultures used by Paerl (1982) were not axenic, they therefore provided also microautoradiographic evidence for the utilization of 55Fe by free-living bacteria or bacteria attached to filaments. The two major challenges pointed out by Paerl (1982) were the exposure time of several weeks to develop the silver grains and the abiotic adsorption of 55Fe to filters or particulate matter, which resulted in a

high number of nonspecific silver grains. In the marine environment, the only study applying 55Fe microautoradiography to determine cell-specific activity is based on phytoplankton cells (Hutchins et al., 1993). These authors demonstrated the incorporation of 55Fe by different members of the phytoplankton community, in particular by the diatom Thalassiosira weissflogii Omipalisib solubility dmso and by the Cyanobacterium Synechococcus

spp. (Hutchins et al., 1993). The contribution of different bacterial groups to the utilization of iron in the marine environment has, however, not been addressed thus far. The objective of this study was to elaborate a protocol for the use of 55Fe as a radiotracer for bacterial single-cell analysis, applying Amine dehydrogenase microautoradiography coupled to FISH. The 55FeCl3 stock solution (1.86 × 103 Ci mol−1; PerkinElmer) was diluted 10 000 times in 0.012 M suprapur HCl to obtain the working solution. Preparation of the wash solutions oxalate-Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and Ti-citrate-EDTA was performed following the protocols described in Tovar-Sanchez et al. (2003) and in Hudson & Morel (1989), respectively. Solutions were 0.2-μm-filtered (syringe filter; Acrodisc) before use. For sampling and incubations, we used polycarbonate (PC) bottles and plastic ware soaked in 10% HCl for at least 24 h and subsequently rinsed with Milli-Q (MQ) water before being used. Labware was sterilized three times by microwaving (5 min, power 750W), dried, and stored under a laminar flow hood. This cleaning procedure was performed in a clean room. In a first set of experiments, we used the bacterial strain Alteromonas macleodii (MOLA60, GenBank accession number: AM990835).