Improved long-term cryostorage of Escherichia coli competent cells using trehalose

Conventional electron microscopy (EM) involves dehydration, fixation, and staining of biological samples, which distorts the native state of biological molecules and results in several artifacts. Also, the high-energy electron beam damages the sample and makes it difficult to obtain high-resolution images. These issues can be addressed using cryo-EM, which uses frozen samples and gentler electron beams. The technique was developed by Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson, for...

Bacterial growth is closely tied to nutrient availability, with cells proliferating exponentially under favorable conditions and entering a stationary phase when resources become scarce. This transition is mediated by a regulatory mechanism known as the stringent response, which allows bacteria to adapt to nutrient deprivation by modulating gene expression and metabolic activity.During nutrient scarcity, intracellular amino acid levels decline. It results in the accumulation of uncharged tRNAs...