Dielectrophoresis-based discrimination of bacteria at the strain level based on their surface properties

William A Braff; Dana Willner; Philip Hugenholtz; Korneel Rabaey; Cullen R Buie

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0076751

Dielectrophoresis-based discrimination of bacteria at the strain level based on their surface properties

PLoS One. 2013 Oct 16;8(10):e76751. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0076751. eCollection 2013.

Authors

William A Braff¹, Dana Willner, Philip Hugenholtz, Korneel Rabaey, Cullen R Buie

Affiliation

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America.

Abstract

Insulator-based dielectrophoresis can be used to manipulate biological particles, but has thus far found limited practical applications due to low sensitivity. We present linear sweep three-dimensional insulator-based dielectrophoresis as a considerably more sensitive approach for strain-level discrimination bacteria. In this work, linear sweep three-dimensional insulator-based dielectrophoresis was performed on Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14 along with six isogenic mutants as well as Streptococcus mitis SF100 and PS344. Strain-level discrimination was achieved between these clinically important pathogens with applied electric fields below 10 V/mm. This low voltage, high sensitivity technique has potential applications in clinical diagnostics as well as microbial physiology research.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cell Wall / metabolism
Electricity
Electrophoresis / methods*
Phenotype
Pseudomonas aeruginosa / cytology*
Pseudomonas aeruginosa / isolation & purification*
Streptococcus mitis / cytology*
Streptococcus mitis / isolation & purification*
Surface Properties

Grants and funding

This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation (Award #1150615), the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives Seed Fund, and a Starter Grant from the European Research Council. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.