The use of a metal mesh device (MMD) as a precision bacterial separation filter is described. The MMD uses a structure in which identically shaped pores are arranged in a thin metal membrane. Four types of MMD with different pore sizes were used to fractionate bacteria in two types of soil. Through metagenomic analysis, the distribution of bacteria in the soil samples and in each MMD fraction was examined. In addition, eight types of previously described organic compound-degrading bacteria were used to evaluate the method, and changes in their composition following MMD fractionation were investigated. It was found that MMD fractions were enriched for all eight bacteria when compared with the initial sample. These results suggest that bacterial fractionation using MMD can enrich bacteria occurring at low frequencies in environmental samples.

描述了使用金属网装置 (MMD) 作为精密细菌分离过滤器。MMD 使用一种结构，其中相同形状的孔排列在金属薄膜中。四种不同孔径的 MMD 用于分离两种土壤中的细菌。通过宏基因组分析，检查了土壤样品和每个 MMD 部分中细菌的分布。此外，使用八种先前描述的有机化合物降解细菌来评估该方法，并研究了 MMD 分馏后它们的组成变化。结果发现，与初始样品相比，所有八种细菌都富含 MMD 组分。这些结果表明，使用 MMD 进行细菌分离可以富集环境样品中低频出现的细菌。