Environmental Microbiology Laboratory (EML)

The Environmental Microbiology Laboratory (EML) offers a range of services. The EML is a fully equipped modern laboratory for molecular biology and the culturing of microorganisms.

These include facilities for manipulation and fingerprinting of DNA and various forms of enrichment and microbial culture techniques. Our location, at The University of Queensland, St Lucia campus, Brisbane, ensures we have ready access to a range of excellent complementary facilities that include confocal laser scanning microscopy, electron microscopy and flow cytometry. We have strong expertise and experience for molecular characterisation of environmental and industry samples particularly for determining microbial community composition.

Services include:

• Community DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis: At the core of identifying microorganisms from environmental samples is sequencing of ribosomal genes. EML uses the latest techniques for cloning and “next-generation” DNA sequencing. Phylogenetic sequence analysis is used to determine the relationship of unknown microorganisms to known representatives.
• Microbial community structure using fluorescent probes: Fluorescently-labeled oligonucleotide probes based upon RNA sequences have achieved wide acceptance in the field of microbial ecology. This technique is widely used to visualise and identify microorganisms directly in the environmental sample, and is known as fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH).
• Microbial community profiling: Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) and Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (TRFLP) are high throughput methods that are very powerful for the comparison of microbial diversity in a number of samples, for example to examine spatial and temporal population variations.