Extended Data Fig. 5: Micrographs showing polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) storage by coccobacilli ‘Ca. M. nitroreducens’ cells.
From: Anaerobic methanotroph ‘Candidatus Methanoperedens nitroreducens’ has a pleomorphic life cycle
a. and b. ‘Ca. M. nitroreducens nitroreducens’ (FISH, AAA-FW-641); c. Negative FISH control (non-EUB); d. All bacteria (FISH, EUBmix). Images within each set are the same field of view. For all image sets: i. DIC images; ii. FISH (green); iii. pre-Nile Blue A stain control; iv. Nile Blue A positive lipid inclusions (appear red). a.ii., b.ii. and c.ii. are taken with the same image settings. All iii. and iv. images are taken with the same image settings. Scale bars represent 20 µm in all images. Representative image sets were selected for each probe set from >4 fields of view across 2 independent FISH hybridisations. In support of these observations, visual assessment of (>10 wells; 8 µl biomass per well) Nile Blue A stained biomass did not identify any PHA positive cells that did not exhibit the distinctive ‘Ca. M. nitroreducens’ coccobacilli morphotype. ‘Ca. M. nitroreducens’ was also the only population with high expression of the PHA synthase gene (phaC; Fig. 2b).
