Changes in polyhydroxyalkanoate granule accumulation make optical density measurement an unreliable method for estimating bacterial growth in <i>Burkholderia thailandensis</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Optical density (OD) measurement is the standard method used in microbiology for estimating bacterial concentrations in cultures. However, most studies do not compare these measurements with viable cell counts and assume that they reflect the real cell concentration. Burkholderia thailandensis was recently identified as a polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) producer. PHA biosynthesis seems to be coded by an orthologue of the Cupriavidus necator phaC gene. When growing cultures of wild-type strain E264 and an isogenic phaC mutant, we noted a difference in their OD 600 values, although viable cell counts indicated similar growth. Investigating the cellular morphologies of both strains, we found that under our conditions the wild-type strain was full of PHA granules, deforming the cells, while the mutant contained no granules. These factors apparently affected the light scattering, making the OD 600 values no longer representative of cell density. We show a direct correlation between OD 600 values and the accumulation of PHA. We conclude that OD measurement is unreliable for growth evaluation of B. thailandensis because of PHA production. This study also suggests that B. thailandensis could represent an excellent candidate for PHA bioproduction. Correlation between OD measurements and viable cell counts should be verified in any study performed with B. thailandensis.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".