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Live-dead staining with propidium iodide can give erroneous results for bacteria showing high membrane potentials. We observed uptake of propidium ions across intact cell membranes for Dinoroseobacter shibae and Bacillus subtilis. Apparently, a high membrane potential facilitates breakthrough of the double-charged propidium ion and can mark viable cells as dead.
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Kirchhoff et al. (2017) studied this question.
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