How We Study Microbes

Overview: How do we study microbes? This is a question loaded with significance, because the way we study microbes is often driven by what we are able to do rather than what we would like to do. Because microbes are largely invisible to our eyes, trying to visualise them by microscopy - magnifying to enable us to see them and their components - is foundational. Linked to this is the development of probes: labelled (e.g. coloured) molecules that specifically attach to cells and cell components and thereby allow them to be revealed by microscopy. And because a microbial cell represents verrrrry little material to analyse, we are frequently preoccupied by amplifying it, or bits of it, to obtain enough material to study. Moreover, we frequently study proxies of our object of study, rather than the real thing. Most studies these days are genomics-centric, involving analysis of the genomes of microbes or of a community of microbes (metagenomics), or of the products of genome expression – transcriptomics (the RNA copies of genes), proteomics (the proteins made), metabolomics (the metabolites made), and so on, which serve as useful proxies of of what type of metabolic activity might be going on in a cell or the environment under study. The study of tiny organisms often requires very large, sophisticated instruments! Studying our little friends is really challenging, but really rewarding and, above all, really, really exciting