Bacterial infection is a numbers game played one cell at a time. How many host cells got hit, and how heavily? See the analysis in action: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UEn5mqnrROk
Bacterial infection is a numbers game played one cell at a time. How many host cells got hit, and how heavily?
The standard gentamicin protection assay separates intracellular from extracellular bacteria by killing what's outside. It works, but it collapses the per-cell distribution into a single number. A drug that halves the number of infected cells looks identical to one that halves the load inside each infected cell. They are not the same biology.
Imaging keeps the distribution. Cytely segments host cells and reports infection load as the total bacterial cell count within each host cell. Infected fraction, load distribution, and per-cell verification all drop out of the same image.
That is the readout teams actually need to rank compounds, strains, and conditions.
How the assay runs
Segment host cells → detect bacteria as sub-objects → classify inside vs. outside via differential stain → measure count, area and intensity per cell.
What you provide
- Ch1: DAPI (host nuclei)
- Ch2: host cell marker
- Ch3: bacterial label (GFP / mCherry / IF / pHrodo)
- Optional Ch4: extracellular-only counterstain for inside/outside discrimination
What you get
- Bacteria per host cell
- Total bacterial signal per cell
- % infected cells
- % internalized vs. adhered bacteria
Ready to run
GFP/mCherry-expressing strains, IF-stained fixed bacteria, pHrodo-labeled live uptake, inside/outside differential immunostaining, gentamicin-protection endpoints.
Inquire for support
Live-cell entry kinetics at sub-second resolution, intracellular bacterial replication time-courses, secreted-effector translocation assays.