The effects of subcellular nanograting geometry on the formation and growth of bacterial biofilms

Biofilm formation by bacteria protects them against environmental stresses such as desiccation, shear forces and antimicrobial agents, making them much harder to remove and increasing their virulence and persistence in industrial water systems and biomedical equipment. One promising method of disrup...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lai, Chang Quan
Other Authors: Temasek Laboratories
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/142875
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
id sg-ntu-dr.10356-142875
record_format dspace
spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1428752020-09-26T22:18:18Z The effects of subcellular nanograting geometry on the formation and growth of bacterial biofilms Lai, Chang Quan Temasek Laboratories Engineering::Environmental engineering Bacteria Biofilm Biofilm formation by bacteria protects them against environmental stresses such as desiccation, shear forces and antimicrobial agents, making them much harder to remove and increasing their virulence and persistence in industrial water systems and biomedical equipment. One promising method of disrupting biofilm formation and growth is to employ passive surface structures to inhibit bacterial adhesion and aggregation. However, most studies thus far have mainly focused on the early stages of biofilm formation and it is unclear if the influence of surface topography in the early phase will propagate to later stages. Here, we attempt to address this with an investigation into the biofilm formation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa on 25 different nanograting geometries, with dimensions that were systematically varied from subcellular to cellular sizes. The biofilms were characterized from the exponential growth phase to the decline phase, in intervals of 24 H over 4 days, using confocal scanning laser microscopy. Comparing the maximum volume of biofilm formed on each surface over 96 H, it was found that approximately 1/3 of the nanograting geometries exhibited 72 ± 16 % lower biovolume density than a flat surface. Bacteria on these nanogratings were also observed to form 40 ± 11 % smaller microcolonies that were 17 ± 6 % less compact than that found on the control surface. The majority of these nanogratings had deep trenches (i.e. depth ≥ 70% of the cell diameter). Furthermore, P. aeruginosa cells were observed to multiply at approximately twice the rate on almost all the nanogratings compared to flat surfaces, but these cell populations also began to decline 24 H earlier than those on a flat surface. Using available literature on P. aeruginosa, a qualitative model was put forth, attributing the results to increased cell motility, decreased exopolysaccharide formation and disrupted psl adhesin/signal trails on nanogratings. These factors, together, led to the net effects of reduced attachment, increased scattering of cells and rapid decline of the biofilms on nanogratings. The insights derived from this study suggest that passive surface geometries can be designed and optimized to successfully control/inhibit biofilm formation and growth. 2020-07-06T08:16:21Z 2020-07-06T08:16:21Z 2020 Journal Article Lai, C. Q. (2020). The effects of subcellular nanograting geometry on the formation and growth of bacterial biofilms. IEEE transactions on nanobioscience, 19(2), 203 - 212. doi:10.1109/TNB.2019.2957060 1536-1241 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/142875 10.1109/TNB.2019.2957060 31804941 2-s2.0-85083456050 2 19 203 212 en IEEE transactions on nanobioscience © 2020 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. The published version is available at: https://doi.org/10.1109/TNB.2019.2957060. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Engineering::Environmental engineering
Bacteria
Biofilm
spellingShingle Engineering::Environmental engineering
Bacteria
Biofilm
Lai, Chang Quan
The effects of subcellular nanograting geometry on the formation and growth of bacterial biofilms
description Biofilm formation by bacteria protects them against environmental stresses such as desiccation, shear forces and antimicrobial agents, making them much harder to remove and increasing their virulence and persistence in industrial water systems and biomedical equipment. One promising method of disrupting biofilm formation and growth is to employ passive surface structures to inhibit bacterial adhesion and aggregation. However, most studies thus far have mainly focused on the early stages of biofilm formation and it is unclear if the influence of surface topography in the early phase will propagate to later stages. Here, we attempt to address this with an investigation into the biofilm formation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa on 25 different nanograting geometries, with dimensions that were systematically varied from subcellular to cellular sizes. The biofilms were characterized from the exponential growth phase to the decline phase, in intervals of 24 H over 4 days, using confocal scanning laser microscopy. Comparing the maximum volume of biofilm formed on each surface over 96 H, it was found that approximately 1/3 of the nanograting geometries exhibited 72 ± 16 % lower biovolume density than a flat surface. Bacteria on these nanogratings were also observed to form 40 ± 11 % smaller microcolonies that were 17 ± 6 % less compact than that found on the control surface. The majority of these nanogratings had deep trenches (i.e. depth ≥ 70% of the cell diameter). Furthermore, P. aeruginosa cells were observed to multiply at approximately twice the rate on almost all the nanogratings compared to flat surfaces, but these cell populations also began to decline 24 H earlier than those on a flat surface. Using available literature on P. aeruginosa, a qualitative model was put forth, attributing the results to increased cell motility, decreased exopolysaccharide formation and disrupted psl adhesin/signal trails on nanogratings. These factors, together, led to the net effects of reduced attachment, increased scattering of cells and rapid decline of the biofilms on nanogratings. The insights derived from this study suggest that passive surface geometries can be designed and optimized to successfully control/inhibit biofilm formation and growth.
author2 Temasek Laboratories
author_facet Temasek Laboratories
Lai, Chang Quan
format Article
author Lai, Chang Quan
author_sort Lai, Chang Quan
title The effects of subcellular nanograting geometry on the formation and growth of bacterial biofilms
title_short The effects of subcellular nanograting geometry on the formation and growth of bacterial biofilms
title_full The effects of subcellular nanograting geometry on the formation and growth of bacterial biofilms
title_fullStr The effects of subcellular nanograting geometry on the formation and growth of bacterial biofilms
title_full_unstemmed The effects of subcellular nanograting geometry on the formation and growth of bacterial biofilms
title_sort effects of subcellular nanograting geometry on the formation and growth of bacterial biofilms
publishDate 2020
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/142875
_version_ 1681058052915068928