title: Capillary electrophoresis of microbial aggregates.
abstract: Uncontrolled aggregation of bacterial cells is a significant disadvantage of electrophoretic separations. Various aspects of the electrophoretic behavior of different strains of Gram-positive Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis, Sarcina lutea, Staphylococcus aureus(1), and Micrococcus luteus bacteria and Gram-negative Escherichia coli bacteria were investigated in this study. Our findings indicate that bacteria can be rapidly analyzed by CZE with surface charge modification by calcium ions (Ca(2+)). Bound Ca(2+) ions increase zeta potential to more than 2.0 mV and significantly reduce repulsive forces. Under the above conditions, bacterial cells create compact aggregates, and fewer high-intensity signals are observed in electropherograms. The above can be attributed to the bridging effect of Ca(2+) between bacterial cells. CE was performed to analyze bacterial aggregates in an isotachophoretic mode. A single peak was observed in the electropherogram.
authors: Chair of Environmental Chemistry and Bioanalytics, Faculty of Chemistry, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland; Centre for Modern Interdisciplinary Technologies, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland.
authors: Ewelina
authors: E
authors: Dziubakiewicz
authors: Bogusław
authors: B
authors: Buszewski
mesh_terms: D002118:Calcium / Q000737:chemistry; D002413:Cations, Divalent / Q000737:chemistry; D019075:Electrophoresis, Capillary / Q000379:methods; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006094:Gram-Positive Bacteria / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification*
chemical_list: D002413:Cations, Divalent; D002118:Calcium
keywords: Bacterial aggregation; Capillary electrophoresis; Modified cell surface charge; Zeta potential