Quorum sensing

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d10006539

Diffusion chambers were evaluated as a means of cultivating previously uncultivable bacteria using enzymatic DNA isolation, PCR amplication with phyla-specific primers, and gel-electrophoresis. The bacterial diversity elucidated by the molecular techniques performed on the diffusion chambers were then compared to samples from the same environment that were grown in agar pour plates. The ultimate goal of this research would be to learn more about bacterial evolution and possibily use newly cultivable mcrobes to develop new antibiotics, to which bacterial resistances have not yet been developed. In this experiment, a multitude of obstacles presented themsleves that prevented reliable results from being garnered and analyzed. As a result, the Materials and Methods and Discussion sections of the following paper are in-depth looks at the problems encountered during this experiment and the attempts of my lab supervisor, Annette Bollmann, and I to overcome them.