title: Bacteria in solitary confinement.
abstract: Even in clonal bacterial cultures, individual bacteria can show substantial stochastic variation, leading to pitfalls in the interpretation of data derived from millions of cells in a culture. In this issue of the Journal of Bacteriology, as part of their study on osmoadaptation in a cyanobacterium, Nanatani et al. describe employing an ingenious microfluidic device that gently cages individual cells (J Bacteriol 197:676-687, 2015, http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/JB.02276-14). The device is a welcome addition to the toolkit available to probe the responses of individual cells to environmental cues.
authors.affiliation: School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom; Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany c.mullineaux@qmul.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Conrad W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Mullineaux
mesh_terms: D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D027682:Cation Transport Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D046939:Synechocystis / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D027682:Cation Transport Proteins