Three‐Dimensional Obstacles for Bacterial Surface Motility

Meel, Claudia; Kouzel, Nadzeya; Oldewurtel, Enno R.; Maier, Berenike

doi:10.1002/smll.201101362

Cited by 30 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…This phenomenon occurs under stress conditions such as nutrient shortage, oxidative damage, or DNA damage. 32 Therefore, the elongation of E. coli on the pillared films indicates that the nanopillars are inducing stress, corroborating our finding that the surface is bactericidal, and perhaps indicating a secondary mechanism.…”

Section: B Nanotopographical Effects On Cell Morphologysupporting

confidence: 86%

Nanopatterned polymer surfaces with bactericidal properties

Dickson¹,

Liang²,

Rodríguez³

et al. 2015

Biointerphases

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Bacteria that adhere to the surfaces of implanted medical devices can cause catastrophic infection. Since chemical modifications of materials' surfaces have poor long-term performance in preventing bacterial buildup, approaches using bactericidal physical surface topography have been investigated. The authors used Nanoimprint Lithography was used to fabricate a library of biomimetic nanopillars on the surfaces of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) films. After incubation of Escherichia coli (E. coli) on the structured PMMA surfaces, pillared surfaces were found to have lower densities of adherent cells compared to flat films (67%-91% of densities on flat films). Moreover, of the E. coli that did adhere a greater fraction of them were dead on pillared surfaces (16%-141% higher dead fraction than on flat films). Smaller more closely spaced nanopillars had better performance. The smallest most closely spaced nanopillars were found to reduce the bacterial load in contaminated aqueous suspensions by 50% over a 24-h period compared to flat controls. Through quantitative analysis of cell orientation data, it was determined that the minimum threshold for optimal nanopillar spacing is between 130 and 380 nm. Measurements of bacterial cell length indicate that nanopillars adversely affect E. coli morphology, eliciting a filamentous response. Taken together, this work shows that imprinted polymer nanostructures with precisely defined geometries can kill bacteria without any chemical modifications. These results effectively translate bactericidal nanopillar topographies to PMMA, an important polymer used for medical devices.

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Section: B Nanotopographical Effects On Cell Morphologysupporting

confidence: 86%

Nanopatterned polymer surfaces with bactericidal properties

Dickson¹,

Liang²,

Rodríguez³

et al. 2015

Biointerphases

233

240

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Individual cell motility is rarely observed during twitching motility-mediated interstitial biofilm expansion of P. aeruginosa (Semmler et al, 1999). The observation that individual P. aeruginosa cells preferentially migrate along the furrow edge is reminiscent of the behavior previously reported for Neisseria gonorrhoeae diplococci which were observed to migrate via twitching motility along the edges of the channels etched in PDMS surfaces (Meel et al, 2012). It was proposed that the channel walls provided additional surfaces for the type IV pili of the N. gonorrhoeae to bind to facilitate twitching motility (Meel et al, 2012).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 65%

Micro-Patterned Surfaces That Exploit Stigmergy to Inhibit Biofilm Expansion

et al. 2017

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Twitching motility is a mode of surface translocation that is mediated by the extension and retraction of type IV pili and which, depending on the conditions, enables migration of individual cells or can manifest as a complex multicellular collective behavior that leads to biofilm expansion. When twitching motility occurs at the interface of an abiotic surface and solidified nutrient media, it can lead to the emergence of extensive self-organized patterns of interconnected trails that form as a consequence of the actively migrating bacteria forging a furrow network in the substratum beneath the expanding biofilm. These furrows appear to direct bacterial movements much in the same way that roads and footpaths coordinate motor vehicle and human pedestrian traffic. Self-organizing systems such as these can be accounted for by the concept of stigmergy which describes self-organization that emerges through indirect communication via persistent signals within the environment. Many bacterial communities are able to actively migrate across solid and semi-solid surfaces through complex multicellular collective behaviors such as twitching motility and flagella-mediated swarming motility. Here, we have examined the potential of exploiting the stigmergic behavior of furrow-mediated trail following as a means of controlling bacterial biofilm expansion along abiotic surfaces. We found that incorporation of a series of parallel micro-fabricated furrows significantly impeded active biofilm expansion by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Proteus vulgaris. We observed that in both cases bacterial movements tended to be directed along the furrows. We also observed that narrow furrows were most effective at disrupting biofilm expansion as they impeded the ability of cells to self-organize into multicellular assemblies required for escape from the furrows and migration into new territory. Our results suggest that the implementation of micro-fabricated furrows that exploit stigmergy may be a novel approach to impeding active biofilm expansion across abiotic surfaces such as those used in medical and industrial settings.

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“…These observations suggested that the coordination of multiple pilus motors may be mediated mechanically via a tug-of-war of pilus motors pulling in different directions 15 . Furthermore, diplococci (pairs of bacteria) were observed to align and meander in micro-topographic grooves, consistent with a tug-of-war between pili on either side of the bacterium 33 . Moreover, type IV pili fulfil several prerequisites of a tug-of-war mechanism: the persistence time of the motion increases with the number of pili present on the cell surface and the average unbinding force is by an order of magnitude lower than the maximum force that one pilus can generate 15 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 58%

Bacterial twitching motility is coordinated by a two-dimensional tug-of-war with directional memory

et al. 2014

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Type IV pili are ubiquitous bacterial motors that power surface motility. In peritrichously piliated species, it is unclear how multiple pili are coordinated to generate movement with directional persistence. Here we use a combined theoretical and experimental approach to test the hypothesis that multiple pili of Neisseria gonorrhoeae are coordinated through a tug-of-war. Based on force-dependent unbinding rates and pilus retraction speeds measured at the level of single pili, we build a tug-of-war model. Whereas the one-dimensional model robustly predicts persistent movement, the two-dimensional model requires a mechanism of directional memory provided by re-elongation of fully retracted pili and pilus bundling. Experimentally, we confirm memory in the form of bursts of pilus retractions. Bursts are seen even with bundling suppressed, indicating re-elongation from stable core complexes as the key mechanism of directional memory. Directional memory increases the surface range explored by motile bacteria and likely facilitates surface colonization.

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Three‐Dimensional Obstacles for Bacterial Surface Motility

Cited by 30 publications

References 22 publications

Nanopatterned polymer surfaces with bactericidal properties

Nanopatterned polymer surfaces with bactericidal properties

Micro-Patterned Surfaces That Exploit Stigmergy to Inhibit Biofilm Expansion

Bacterial twitching motility is coordinated by a two-dimensional tug-of-war with directional memory

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