Applications of flow cytometry in the study of microbial subpopulations.

This work reviews common flow cytometric methods and applications for the study of bacterial organisms. Flow cytometry is fluorescent method capable of both quantitative and qualitative analysis at the single cell level. It can offer insights about bacterial population dynamics, phenotypic heterogeneity and more. This work features a basic introduction to flow cytometry and presents some of the commonly measured variables, such as viability or membrane potential with an emphasis on the fluorescent probes used to visualize them. The difficulties of adapting flow cytometry to bacterial physiology are discussed, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the particular probes and methods. Finally, this work seeks to demonstrate the flexibility as well as the shortcomings of flow cytometry using examples of practical applications in basic research, environmental microbiology, biotechnology, clinical practice. Keywords: flow cytometry, microbial subpopulations, fluorescent labelling, bacterial physiology, bacterial viabilit