Deployable micro-traps to sequester motile bacteria
Creators
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1.
ETH Zurich
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2.
University of Salerno
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3.
University of Milan
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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5.
Humanitas University
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6.
California Institute of Technology
Abstract
The development of strategies to reduce the load of unwanted bacteria is a fundamental challenge in industrial processing, environmental sciences and medical applications. Here, we report a new method to sequester motile bacteria from a liquid, based on passive, deployable micro-traps that confine bacteria using micro-funnels that open into trapping chambers. Even in low concentrations, micro-traps afford a 70% reduction in the amount of bacteria in a liquid sample, with a potential to reach >90% as shown by modelling improved geometries. This work introduces a new approach to contain the growth of bacteria without chemical means, an advantage of particular importance given the alarming growth of pan-drug-resistant bacteria.
Additional Information
© 2017 The Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Received: 13 October 2016; Accepted: 28 February 2017; Published: 05 April 2017. The authors thank Assaf Gavish and Assaf Vardi (Weizmann Institute of Science) for providing V. coralliilyticus YB2 dsRed. Funding for this research what partially provided by the Swiss National Science Foundation Grant" MechNanoTruss-Mechanical response of polymer nanotruss scaffolds "(Grant No. 164375). Author Contributions: R.D.G., S.K., B.M., P.B., R.R., R.S. and C.D conceived the idea and designed the research. R.D.G., S.K., P.B. and R.R. performed and analyzed bacteria experiments. R.R. performed and analyzed numerical simulations. R.D.G., S.K., B.M., P.B., R.R., R.S. and C.D. wrote the manuscript. The authors declare no competing financial interests.Attached Files
Published - srep45897.pdf
Supplemental Material - srep45897-s1.avi
Supplemental Material - srep45897-s2.doc
Files
srep45897.pdf
Additional details
Identifiers
- PMCID
- PMC5381207
- Eprint ID
- 76476
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20170410-124125950
Funding
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
- 164375
Dates
- Created
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2017-04-10Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field