Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 13
PROBING BACTERIAL ADHESION USING
FORCE SPECTROSCOPY
Terri A. Camesano
Department of Chemical Engineering, Life Science and Bioengineering Center at Gateway
Park, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Rd., Worcester, MA 01609 USA
terric@wpi.edu
13.1 INTRODUCTION
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has become a signiicant tool for studying
the complex interface between bacteria and surfaces. Bacterial adhesion
is important to applications ranging from prevention of infection on
biomaterials, vaccine development, groundwater protection from mobile
pathogens, biomineralization, food safety, biosensors and bioenergy. The
ability to use AFM now allows researchers a method to quantify the forces of
adhesion and to fully characterize the properties of bacterial molecules that
mediate the adhesion process.
AFM is a unique instrument in that it can be used not only to capture
high-resolution images of biological samples, but to measure nanoscale
interaction forces on biological samples and to probe biomolecules with
excellent resolution. By making force measurements, the AFM can be used
to study the chemical and mechanical properties of the sample surface such
as elasticity, adhesion and even forces between single molecules. A review of
using AFM for force measurements has been given by Butt
et al.
1
During force
mode, the piezoelectric crystal of the scanner stops moving in the
x
and
y
directions and only the movement in the
direction is recorded. As the probe
approaches and retracts from the sample, a plot is generated that relects the
delection of the cantilever as a function of probe-sample position.
z
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