Figure 5. Observation of EM formation using CLSM images. SYTO 9 (green area) stained the cells with intact cell membranes, PI (red area) stained the cells with damaged cell membranes, and Calcofluor White (blue area) stained polysaccharides.
The CLSM and SEM images suggest that cell morphological changes would be caused by the inhibition of EM formation by indoxyl. Decreased EMs can promote cytoplasmic loss, and transmission electron microscopy can observe the separation of the cell membrane from the cell wall due to the loss of cytoplasm (Wei et al., 2021). Atomic force microscopy can observe cell shrinkage caused by external stress, resulting in cell surface folds (Wang et al., 2020). In this study, the damage to the cell membrane observed using CLSM may also lead to the loss of cytoplasm, and then the cells undergo morphological changes.