A printed nanolitre-scale bacterial sensor array.
The last decade has witnessed a significant increase in interest in whole-cell biosensors for diverse applications, as well as a rapid and continuous expansion of array technologies. The combination of these two disciplines has yielded the notion of whole-cell array biosensors. We present a potential manifestation of this idea by describing the printing of a whole-cell bacterial bioreporters array. Exploiting natural bacterial tendency to adhere to positively charged abiotic surfaces, we describe immobilization and patterning of bacterial "spots" in the nanolitre volume range by a non-contact robotic printer. We show that the printed Escherichia coli-based sensor bacteria are immobilized on the surface, and retain their viability and biosensing activity for at least 2 months when kept at 4 °C. Immobilization efficiency was improved by manipulating the bacterial genetics (overproducing curli protein), the growth and the printing media (osmotic stress and osmoprotectants) and by a chemical modification of the inanimate surface (self-assembled layers of 3-aminopropyl-triethoxysilane). We suggest that the methodology presented herein may be applicable to the manufacturing of whole-cell sensor arrays for diverse high throughput applications.
Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 91904, Israel.
Sahar
S
Melamed
Laura
L
Ceriotti
Wilfried
W
Weigel
François
F
Rossi
Pascal
P
Colpo
Shimshon
S
Belkin
D001422:Bacterial Adhesion; D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000166:cytology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D005818:Genetic Engineering; D050296:Microbial Viability; D046888:Tissue Array Analysis / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*