Z-Projects

Central service projects

Z01: Fabrication of microplastic particles

The project deals with the fabrication of microplastic (MP) samples for all CRC projects. This guarantees that all research groups are provided with uniform polymer materials and the results of the sub-projects can be compared to each other. MP-particles will be made from six different plastics in a size range from 0.5 µm to 5 mm using different milling techniques as well as spray drying and emulsion polymerization. Special focus will be put to the fabrication of fluorescence labeled particles and on MP samples with and without additives.

Z02: Genomics and Bioinformatics

The CRC investigates the biological effects of microplastics on limnetic and terrestrial organisms and their closely associated microbial communities. Since these effects may be locally limited or even cell-specific, the service sub-project Z02 establishes a single-cell transcriptome technology platform and carries out transcriptome, meta-transcriptome and microbiome analyses in collaboration with the sub-projects. The employees of the sub-projects are involved in the analysis of the next-generation sequencing data in order to enable a well-founded interpretation of the results