Phenotypic heterogeneity affects culturability of Nitrosomonas mobilis Ms1.. Nitrosomonas mobilis strain:Ms1

Most microorganisms are difficult to culture in laboratory environments. We hypothesize that this problem is caused by growth variation among cells. If growth rates of individual cells are various, efficiency of subculture may be low because subcultured cells are not always fast grower. Thus, our research aim is to verify effects of the phenotypic heterogeneity on cultivation efficiency and what signal affects variability of growth rate. In this study, Nitrosomonas mobilis Ms1 was used as a model of difficult to culture organisms.