PNAG-driven mode of biofilm formation in E. coli

Source: Amini S, Goodarzi H, Tavazoie S. (2009). Genetic dissection of an exogenously induced biofilm in laboratory and clinical isolates of E. coli. PLoS Pathog. 2009 May;5(5):e1000432.

This is the first experimental project the progress of which I've observed from conception to completion. I witnessed the myriad of challenges that Sasan had to deal with to make the case for his hypotheses. And amazingly enough, he pulled it through. In experimental biology, it's difficult to claim victory at any point. Every given experiment prompts more experiments that are both labor-intensive and time-consuming. In computational biology, it is the model, the experiment or the approach that matters... it has to be novel. In experimental biology, on the other hand, what you need to do is clear (most of the time), it's just that matter of doing it. E.g. for testing the function of a gene you need to knock it out. Every one knows that. But dong it is the difficult part. This study was one of those cases were many corroborative experiments needed to be done, from microarray-based fitness profiling of mutant libraries to peptidoglycan extraction and visualization (polyacrylamide gels) to PNAG purification and validation (mass spectrometry). And remember that one lab does not actively use all these methodologies and sometimes for doing one experiment you have to set-up the whole experiment: ordering the reagents, making the solutions, optimizing conditions and ...

At this point, I actually feel ashamed. The fact that I reduce thousands of hours of work into a couple of sentences, passing judgement from the safety of my laptop bothers me (just a little though). I'm not going to do this for this particular study. If you're interested, read the whole paper (it is open access). I would just tell you that this is an example of a complete story, from start to finish and I congratulate Sasan for accomplishing this painstaking task.