Influence of Growth Phase on Adhesion Kinetics of Escherichia coli D21g

Abstract

The influence of bacterial growth stage and the evolution of surface macromolecules on cell adhesion have been examined by using a mutant of Escherichia coli K-12. To better understand the adhesion kinetics of bacteria in the mid-exponential and stationary growth phases under flow conditions, deposition experiments were conducted in a well-controlled radial stagnation point flow (RSPF) system. Complementary cell characterization techniques were conducted in combination with the RSPF experiments to evaluate the hydrophobicity, electrophoretic mobility, size, and titratable surface charge of the cells in the two growth phases considered. It was observed that cells in stationary phase were notably more adhesive than those in mid-exponential phase. This behavior is attributed to the high degree of local charge heterogeneity on the outer membranes of stationary-phase cells, which results in decreased electrostatic repulsion between the cells and a quartz surface. The mid-exponential-phase cells, on the other hand, have a more uniform charge distribution on the outer membrane, resulting in greater electrostatic repulsion and, subsequently, less adhesion. Our results suggest that the macromolecules responsible for this phenomenon are outer membrane-bound proteins and lipopolysaccharide-associated functional groups.

Linking Microbial Community Structure to Function in Representative Simulated Systems

“…Hydrophobicity was measured by the microbial-adhesion-to-hydrocarbon (MATH) test, which gives a quantitative measure of the amount of cells partitioning in the hydrocarbon versus the electrolyte phase (41). The average microbial size, notably the length, width, and subsequently calculated average equivalent spherical radius, was determined from three images (n Ͼ 20) by utilizing a phase-contrast microscope and imaging software (Matlab; MathWorks, Natick, MA) (41).…”

Deposition of Silver Nanoparticles in Geochemically Heterogeneous Porous Media: Predicting Affinity from Surface Composition Analysis

“…Among these particles some are by themselves environmental contaminants (Kessler and Hunt ;Buddemeier and Hunt 1988) while some serve as vehicles to facilitate the transport of a variety of other contaminants that otherwise would be relatively immobile without the presence of the colloids (McCarthy and Zachara 1989;Corapcioglu and Jiang 1993;Grolimund, Borkovec et al 1996;Ryan and Elimelech 1996). Different types of environmentally relevant particles have been studied, including various minerals, Rajagopalan and Chu 1982;Puls and Powell 1992;Ryde, Kihira et al 1992) bacteria and viruses, (Logan, Hilbert et al 1993;Pieper, Ryan et al 1997;Ryan, Elimelech et al 1999;Redman, Walker et al 2004;Walker, Hill et al 2005) and engineered nanoparticles (Lecoanet, Bottero et al 2004;Brant, Lecoanet et al 2005;Saleh, Phenrat et al 2005;Chen and Elimelech 2006;Espinasse, Hotze et al 2007;Jaisi, Saleh et al 2008). The transport and mobility of engineered nanoparticles have been of particular interest over the past few years due to concerns over possible environmental and health impact of these materials (Hoet, Nemmar et al 1999;Colvin 2003;Borm, Robbins et al 2006;Renn and Roco 2006;Wiesner, Lowry et al 2006).…”

Bacterial adhesion onto nanofiltration and reverse osmosis membranes: Effect of permeate flux

“…Moreover, the composition of macromolecules on the outer membrane is known to be influenced by the bacterial growth phase (Hong and Brown (2006)). In one recent study (Walker et al (2005)) it was shown that the adhesion profile of Escherichia coli was dependent on its growth phase, which was determined by the charge distribution resulting from electrostatic repulsion forces. Differences in biofouling of RO membranes have also been showed to depend on the growth stage of the bacterial species studied (Herzberg et al (2009)).…”