An Advanced Mobile Laboratory to enable field-based microbial ecology and cell biology across scales

Abstract

Microbial biodiversity is central to ecosystem function, yet mechanistic insights into the cell biology of environmental organisms remain limited. The underlying challenges are twofold: most microbes remain uncultivable, and a persistent gap exists between field sampling and laboratory analyses. Here, we introduce the Advanced Mobile Laboratory (AML), a field-deployable platform that integrates confocal microscopy, image-enabled cell sorting, and cryo-preparation for expansion and electron microscopy. This setup enables immediate, standardized processing and analysis of environmental communities directly at the sampling site. We demonstrate its capability using marine eukaryotic plankton, showing how the AML enables multiscale investigations, from live imaging of natural communities to enabling ultrastructural and single-cell omics analyses, while minimizing sample degradation and enabling on-site experimentation. By bringing high-end sample preparation and analytical capacity into the field, the AML enables studying life in its natural context to mechanistically understand life's diversity in the environment.

Key findings

• ▸Most environmental microbes remain uncultivable, creating a significant gap between field sampling and mechanistic cell biology insights.
• ▸The AML successfully integrates high-end analytical capacities like cryo-preparation and confocal microscopy into a mobile field setting.
• ▸The platform enables direct study of marine eukaryotic plankton in their natural context without the need for sample transport to a lab.

Keywords

Identifiers

DOI

10.64898/2026.02.23.707475

Journal

bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)

Year

2026