title: Effects of sodium azide on the abundance of prokaryotes and viruses in marine samples.
abstract: Flow cytometry is set to become the standard method for enumerating prokaryotes and viruses in marine samples. However, the samples need to be flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen directly after aldehyde fixation. Because liquid nitrogen may not always be available, we tested the potential of sodium azide as a preservative for prokaryotes and viruses in marine samples as a possible alternative. For that we conducted incubation experiments with untreated and sodium azide treated marine water samples at 4°C and room temperature. The data indicate that sodium azide cannot be used to maintain marine samples used for the enumeration of prokaryotes and viruses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. christian.winter@univie.ac.at
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Winter
authors.forename: Marie-Emmanuelle
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Kerros
authors.forename: Markus G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Weinbauer
mesh_terms: D002452:Cell Count; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D008386:Marine Biology / Q000379:methods*; D011387:Prokaryotic Cells / Q000187:drug effects*; D012623:Seawater; D019810:Sodium Azide / Q000494:pharmacology*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014021:Tissue Preservation / Q000379:methods*; D014780:Viruses / Q000187:drug effects*
chemical_list: D019810:Sodium Azide