Species-specific ribosomal RNA-FISH identifies interspecies cellular-material exchange, active-cell population dynamics and cellular localization of translation machinery in clostridial cultures and co-cultures.

. We demonstrate that rRNA-FISH is capable of identifying rRNA/ribosome exchange between the three organisms and characterized rRNA localization patterns in each. In combination with flow cytometry, rRNA-FISH can capture sub-population dynamics in co-cultures.