Adhesion Forces Between E. coli Bacteria and Biomaterial Surfaces

Bacterial infection of biomaterial surfaces is an important problem in the biomedical and health industries. The design of materials resistant to infections necessitates an understanding of the forces driving bacterial adhesion. Escherichia coli cells were immobilized onto the tip of a standard atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilever, and force measurements were performed by approaching the modified cantilever onto mica, hydrophilic glass, hydrophobic glass, polystyrene, and Teflon. Consistent with prior qualitative observations, we show that bacterial adhesion is indeed enhanced by the surface hydrophobicity of the substrate. The forces of interaction measured with the AFM are compared to those of model predictions based on an extended-DLVO approach. In this model, short-range acid−base and steric interactions are included with the conventional van der Waals attraction and electrostatic components. The theoretical predictions agree well with experimental data for E. coli D21f2, a strain whose outer surface consists of lipopolysaccharide molecules with severely truncated carbohydrate chains. However, the adhesive behavior of E. coli strains with more complex cell surface structures was found to be more difficult to model because of the possible involvement of steric and bridging effects or specific receptor−ligand interactions that remain to be resolved.