Use of Resazurin To Rapidly Enumerate Bdellovibrio and Like Organisms and Evaluate Their Activities

Abstract

Bdellovibrio and like organisms are predatory bacteria that are capable of attacking, killing, and consuming many bacterial pathogens, including multidrug-resistant strains. These qualities have led to them being labeled as “living antibiotics.” Research work with these remarkable strains, however, has been hampered by long growth times needed to quantify the predatory populations through plaque assays, which typically take 4 days to develop.