Rapid assessment of cell viability of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus by measurement of intracellular pH in individual cells using fluorescence ratio imaging microscopy

The aim of this study was to investigate if the measurement of intracellular pH (pHi) of individual cells by fluorescence ratio imaging microscopy (FRIM) could be utilized as a rapid method for determining the bacterial viability, using Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus as a model organism. Five different standardized cultures with equal cell densities but varying viability were prepared on a trial-to-trial basis by combining aliquots of frozen and lyophilized cells with a 50-fold difference in viability, determined by the ability to form colonies on solid growth media. The acidification of milk and Acidification Power Test were used to determine the activity of these cultures. As expected, the cultures containing a higher proportion of viable cells acidified milk faster and performed better in the Acidification Power Test. All cells were fluorescent after staining with carboxyfluorescein diacetate succinimidyl ester but frozen cells reached higher fluorescence intensities than lyophilized cells. The number of strongly fluorescent cells determined by flow cytometry exceeded the number of viable cells determined by CFU. Analysis of pHi of individual cells by FRIM at an extracellular pH of 6.0 revealed two populations of cells with an average pHi of 6.9±0.1 and 6.1±0.1. As the number of cells maintaining a pH-gradient of 0.9±0.1 correlated well with CFU, we suggest that FRIM can be used as a rapid method for the determination of viability of L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus. Measurement of pHi on a single cell basis is expected to provide accurate prediction of the fermentation performance in a wider range of industrial fermentation.