New Raman tools published in Nature Microbiology and the ISME Journal

The group led by Michael Wagner has published in collaboration with the teams of Roman Stocker (ETH Zürich) and Per Nielsen (Aalborg University) two new Raman-based methods for microbial ecology. In the Nature Microbiology paper an automated optomicrofluidic cell sorted is presented which allows sorting of cells according to their Raman spectrum for subsequent cultivation or single-cell genomics. In contrast to FACS machines this device sorts microbial cells from complex communities according to their function. In the ISME J paper a combination of FISH and Raman microspectrosopy was used to quantify the contribution of Accumulibacter sp. and Tetrasphaera sp. to enhanced biological phosphorous removal (EBPR) in Danish waste water treatment plants. Unexpectedly, Tetrasphaera contributed in most plants more to P-removal than Accumulibacter. Furthermore the results show that a large fraction of removed P is not found in both clades suggesting the existence of novel EBPR-microbes.