科研之友
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摘要
Bacteria adherent to the surface are implicated with biofilm formation and infection. Elastic polymer with tunable mechanical properties, such as PDMS (polydimethyl siloxane), has been used as a substrate for measuring traction force generated by animal cells. In this study, soft pillars (diameter: 900 nm, height: 2 mu m, stiffness: 24.1 nN/mu m) made of PDMS were used to measure adhesion force between Staphylococcus aureus and PDMS surface. The retraction of soft pillars upon S. aureus binding serves as a means for force estimation and is measured by change of the center-to-center (c-t-c) distance between pillars. Surprisingly, the c-t-c distance between two neighbouring pillars was decreased by 2.2% from its original distance upon bacterial adhesion onto the pillars. Based on the result, the average adhesion force of bacterial binding to pillars was calculated to 0.9 +/- 2 nN, which is much higher than expected. This suggests that the soft pillars can be used as a nanomechanical sensor for detecting various bacteria and could be a tool for sensing bacterial adhesion force in nano-newton range.
- 出版日期2017-11
