Inhibitory effects of sodium azide on microbial growth in experimental resuspension of marine sediment.

Sodium azide (NaN3) was evaluated as inhibitor of microbial growth and activity in marine sediment resuspensions by monitoring the abundance of free-living and sessile bacteria using both flow cytometry and qPCR methods. Results show that 50mM of NaN3 strongly inhibits bacterial growth under natural and enriched resource conditions.