Summary Although bacterial cells are known to experience large forces from osmotic pressure differences and their local microenvironment, quantitative measurements of the mechanical properties of growing bacterial cells have been limited. We provide an experimental approach and theoretical framework for measuring the mechanical properties of live bacteria. We encapsulated bacteria in agarose with a user-defined stiffness, measured the growth rate of individual cells, and fit data to a thin-shell mechanical model to extract the effective longitudinal Young's modulus of the cell envelope of Escherichia coli (50–150 MPa), Bacillus subtilis (100–200 MPa), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (100–200 MPa). Our data provide estimates of cell wall stiffness similar to values obtained via the more labor-intensive technique of atomic force microscopy. To address physiological perturbations that produce changes in cellular mechanical properties, we tested the effect of A22-induced MreB depolymerization on the stiffness of E. coli. The effective longitudinal Young's modulus was not significantly affected by A22 treatment at short time scales, supporting a model in which the interactions between MreB and the cell wall persist on the same time scale as growth. Our technique therefore enables the rapid determination of how changes in genotype and biochemistry affect the mechanical properties of the bacterial envelope.

Organic glasses can grow crystals much faster on the free surface than in the interior, a phenomenon important for fabricating stable amorphous materials. This surface process differs from and is faster than the glass-to-crystal (GC) growth mode existing in the bulk of molecular glasses. We report that similar to GC growth, surface crystal growth terminates if glasses are heated to gain fluidity. In their steady growth below the glass transition temperature T, surface crystals rise above the amorphous surface while spreading laterally and are surrounded by depressed grooves. Above T, the growth becomes slower, sometimes unstable. This damage is stronger on segregated needles (α indomethacin, nifedipine, and o-terphenyl) than on crystals growing in compact domains (γ indomethacin). This effect arises because the onset of liquid flow causes the wetting and embedding of upward-growing surface crystals. Segregated needles are at greater risk because their slow-growing flanks appear stationary relative to liquid flow at a low temperature. The disruption of surface crystal growth by fluidity supports the view that the process occurs by surface diffusion, not viscous flow. Compared to the bulk GC mode, surface crystal growth is disrupted less abruptly by fluidity. Nevertheless, to the extent that fluidity damages them, both processes are solid-state phenomena terminated in the liquid state.

We report the first model of electrically activated mechanochemical system made of polyelectrolyte gels which contracts, oscillates, and bends reversibly. On the basis of this principle a variety of devices which function under electric stimulus, i.e., a “chemical valve” membrane expanding and contracting the pore size, a switching oscillating 15 to 100 times per minute, and a composite bending like “bimetal” were developed.

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Crystal growth in organic glasses has been studied in the presence of low-concentration polymers. Doping the organic glass nifedipine (NIF) with 1 wt % polymer has no measurable effect on the glass transition temperature Tg of host molecules, but substantially alters the rate of crystal growth, from a 10-fold reduction to a 30% increase at 12 °C below the host Tg. Among the polymers tested, all but polyethylene oxide (PEO) inhibit growth. The inhibitory effects greatly diminish in the liquid state (at Tg + 38 °C), but PEO persists to speed crystal growth. The crystal growth rate varies exponentially with polymer concentration, in analogy with the polymer effect on solvent mobility, though the effect on crystal growth can be much stronger. The ability to inhibit crystal growth is not well ordered by the strength of host-polymer hydrogen bonds, but correlates remarkably well with the neat polymer's Tg, suggesting that the mobility of polymer chains is an important factor in inhibiting crystal growth in organic glasses. The polymer dopants also affect crystal growth at the free surface of NIF glasses, but the effect is attenuated according to the power law us ∝ ub(0.35), where us and ub are the surface and bulk growth rates.