Plant extracts and their components have been reported to have antimicrobial properties against phytopathogens. Although such properties could be harnessed for the development of new pathogen control strategies, there are no standardised methods for their assessment in different extracts. The laboratory exercise presented here involves the use of…

Chemistry experiments involving biological aspects are in high demand. This laboratory exercise blends biochemistry and physical chemistry, illustrates key concepts of the virus capsid surface, and is designed for a chemistry laboratory course for students majoring in biology in college. The experimental part provides a mastery of…

After a time away from the classrooms and laboratories due to the global pandemic, the return to teaching activities during the semester represented a challenge to both teachers and students. Our particular situation in a Microbial Physiology course was the necessity of imparting in shorter time, laboratory practices that usually take longer. This…

Essential oils serve as a valuable, inexpensive natural supply of useful organic compounds that possess various biological activities, including antimicrobial properties, and most oils emit pleasant and familiar odors. They are an excellent source of analytes for introductory organic laboratory experiments. We report an experiment in which…

Perturbation of gene expression using RNA interference (RNAi) or CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) is a useful strategy to explore the function of essential genes. In the archaeon "Haloferax volcanii," the CRISPR-Cas system has been adapted as a CRISPRi tool to silence the expression of specific genes. We developed a laboratory class (LC) to…

The field of DNA nanotechnology has grown rapidly in the past decade and has expanded to multiple laboratories. While lectures in DNA nanotechnology have been introduced in some institutions, laboratory components at the undergraduate level are still lacking. Undergraduate students predominantly learn about DNA nanotechnology through their…

Despite the growing importance of agricultural microbiology at the applied, productive and ecological levels, undergraduate degrees in Agronomy generally do not feature much microbiological experimentation. To address this deficiency, we have designed an experimental programme that evaluates the potential of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria…

Investigating and understanding novel antibacterial agents is a necessary task as there is a constant increase in the number of multidrug-resistant bacterial species. The use of nanotechnology to combat drug-resistant bacteria is an important research area. The laboratory experiment described herein demonstrates that changes in the nanostructure…

Although many laboratory experiments are available to illustrate spectrophotometric or fluorometric methods, few of them introduce the use of luminometry to students. Bioluminescence, a subtype of chemiluminescence, is produced when an enzyme-catalyzed chemical reaction gives rise to light emission. Despite the advantages of bioluminescent…

Regulation is a key concept for understanding the dynamics of metabolism in bacteria. This report outlines a simple laboratory experiment aimed at studying a key form of regulation in bacterial metabolism, exemplifying how microbes switch the flux of carbon towards alternative metabolic fates as a function of nutrient availability and according to…

We present a course-embedded undergraduate research module that involves real-time polymerase chain reaction testing for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in environmental samples. A positive control RNA was constructed and two RNA extraction methods were compared and a range of primers were available to compare. Using a combination of published…

An increase in online science course offerings requires a closer evaluation of the online laboratory experience. While it has been established that students can successfully learn from online laboratory simulations, there is a lack of knowledge regarding factors that impact student success. Grounded in the constructivist learning theory, a unique…

Rhizobacteria that colonize plant roots and promote plant growth are referred to as plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, and this can stimulate plant growth either indirectly or directly. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by rhizobacteria have the capacity to promote plant growth as well as perform biocontrol of fungal pathogens. The…

In this work, we present the results of an undergrad student from the perspective of its first approach as a principal researcher in a project. In order to gain practical experience, one of the options for students that have interest in pursuing a postgraduate program corresponds to a research stay in a laboratory of their selected field…

"Sinorhizobium meliloti" is a bacterium of great agroeconomic importance because of its ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen in symbiotic association with alfalfa ("Medicago sativa") roots, and it is often used in model studies. We investigated the effects of exopolysaccharides (EPSs) in cell-to-cell and cell-to-surface…