The MicroLabRats Gallery

Chief: Ken Timmis

Microbiologists are inquisitive folk: they always want to know what is happening in the microbial world, when, why and by whom. But most of all they want to know how. In general, it is really difficult to figure out how a microbial process is carried out by studying microbes in their natural habitat, because so many different things are going on at once. We need to simplify, investigate one thing at a time, and apply powerful analytical procedures. To do this, we focus on individual microbes that do the thing of interest, characterise them very well, and develop study tools specifically for them. As a result, these well-characterised microbes become the microbial equivalent of the rats biologists study in the laboratory to obtain information about animals in general and humans in particular. The study of MicroLabRats has enormously advanced microbiology knowledge and revealed mechanisms underlying key microbial activities. MicrLabRats are central to microbiology research. In this Gallery, you can view portraits of some of the most important microbial ‘lab rats’.

• Kuena (Kuenenia stuttgartiensis) Claim to fame: reduces nitrogen pollution of aquatic systems.

• Mycoplasma JCVI-syn1.0 and JCVI-syn3.0 Claim to fame: first synthetic and minimal cells (Eng., Fre.)
• Myxo (Myxococcus xanthus) Claim to fame: Bacterial predators showing complex social behavior and producers of bioactive compounds
• Sco (Streptomyces coelicolor) Claim to fame: the model of antibiotic producers
• Suti (Bacillus subtilis) Claim to fame: the sporulation model; secretion specialist