Probing nanostructures of bacterial extracellular polymeric substances versus culture time by Raman microspectroscopy and atomic force microscopy.
The structure of a bacterial cell wall may alter during bacterial reproduction. Moreover, these cell wall variations, on a nanoscale resolution, have not yet fully been elucidated. In this work, Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique are applied to evaluate the culture time-dependent cell wall structure variations of Pseudomonas putida KT2440 at a quorum and single cell level. The Raman spectra indicate that the appearance of DNA/RNA, protein, lipid, and carbohydrates occurs till 6 h of cultivation time under our experimental conditions. AFM characterization reveals the changes of the cellular surface ultrastructures over the culture time period, which is a gradual increase in surface roughness during the time between the first two and eight hours cultivation time. This work demonstrates the feasibility of utilizing a combined Raman spectroscopy and AFM technique to investigate the cultivation time dependence of bacterial cellular surface biopolymers at single cell level.
McEwen
Gerald D
GD
Biological Engineering Program, College of Engineering, 4105 Old Main Hill, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322-4105, USA.
Wu
Yangzhe
Y
Zhou
Anhong
A
D001704:Biopolymers / Q000737:chemistry; D002473:Cell Wall / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry / Q000648:ultrastructure; D016958:Pseudomonas putida / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D013059:Spectrum Analysis, Raman
D001704:Biopolymers