Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Jacob Beal, Natalie G. Farny, Traci Haddock-Angelli, Vinoo Selvarajah, Geoff S. Baldwin, Russell Buckley-Taylor, Markus Gershater, Daisuke Kiga, John Marken, Vishal Sanchania, Christopher T. Workman, iGEM Interlab Study Contributors

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    159 Citations (Scopus)
    282 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article number512
    Pages (from-to)1-29
    Number of pages29
    Journal Communications Biology
    Volume3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 17 Sept 2020

    Bibliographical note

    Copyright the Author(s) 2020. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

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