Access

In This Issue

Nature Reviews Microbiology 6, 327 (1 May 2008) | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1894

In this issue

The ability to differentiate bacteria on the basis of different, or similar, ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs) is central to environmental microbiology. For example, oligonucleotide probes against 16S rRNA can be designed so that single bacterial cells from microbial communities can be sorted into domains, phyla and species using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH).