2.3.8. Hydrophobicity of L. plantarum
Active growing cells from two different strains of L. plantarum, A17 and B21, were harvested as described in Section 2.3.1. The cell pellets were washed with buffer solution and prepared as outlined by Rosenberg, Gutnick, and Rosenberg (1980).
In brief, the washed cell pellets in buffer solution (aqueous phase) were mixed with hexadecane in a ratio of 6:1 in a round bottom test tube which had been acid washed. After vigorously mixing for 2 min using a vortex mixer at high speed, to allow the hydrophobic bacteria to interact with the solvent, the mixture was allowed to stand for approximately 15 min for phase separation.
A small drop of solvent from the upper layer was carefully pipetted and placed on a glass slide and observed under a phase contrast microscope.