Bacterial Sexuality at the Nanoscale

Nano Letters
Cécile FeuillieYves F Dufrêne

Abstract

Understanding the basic mechanisms of bacterial sexuality is an important topic in current microbiology and biotechnology. While classical methods used to study gene transfer provide information on whole cell populations, nanotechnologies offer new opportunities for analyzing the behavior of individual mating partners. We introduce an innovative atomic force microscopy (AFM) platform to study and mechanically control DNA transfer between single bacteria, focusing on the large conjugative pXO16 plasmid of the Gram-positive bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. We demonstrate that the adhesion forces between single donor and recipient cells are very strong (∼2 nN). Using a mutant plasmid, we find that these high forces are mediated by a pXO16 aggregation locus that contains two large surface protein genes. Notably, we also show that AFM can be used to mechanically induce plasmid transfer between single partners, revealing that transfer is very fast (<15 min) and triggers major cell surface changes in transconjugant cells. We anticipate that the single-cell technology developed here will enable researchers to mechanically control gene transfer among a wide range of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial species and to understand th...Continue Reading

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Citations

Dec 9, 2020·Nanoscale·Audrey BeaussartSofiane El-Kirat-Chatel
Jun 12, 2020·Plasmid·Sarah A Revitt-MillsJulian I Rood
Feb 23, 2021·Bioactive Materials·Ying HanHongyu Zhang

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