BACTERIAL FLAGELLAR MOTOR AS A MULTIMODAL BIOSENSING CHIP
Abstract
The Bacterial Flagellar Motor is one of natures rare rotary molecular machines. It enables bacterial swimming and is a key part of the bacterial chemotactic network that enables bacteria to direct their movement given the chemical environment. This network is one of the best-studied chemical signalling networks in biology, sensing down to nanomolar concentrations of specific chemicals on the time scale of seconds. The motors rotational speed is linearly proportional to the bacterial electrochemical gradients, most notably of proton or sodium ions, while its direction is regulated by the chemotactic network. Recently, it has been discovered that the motor is also a mechanosensor. Given these properties, the motor has the potential to serve as a multimodal biosensor with unprecedented speed and sensitivity, and thus a tool for characterizing and studying the external environment, but also bacterial physiology itself. However, at the resolution needed, motor speed and rotational direction are currently detected optically, one motor at a time. A step-change in harnessing the unprecedented potential of this rotary molecular machine would be to detect each motors rotation electrically and with high throughput. Here, we propose to achieve this by specifically attaching individual bacteria to a precise location on the surface and testing two electrical means of detecting the motors rotation: an integrated circuit and a graphene surface. If we are successful, we will enable portable biosensor-on-a-chip configuration of the motor speed and rotational direction detection, which we believe will be a game-changer in the biosensing field.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Oct 19, 2020
- Source ID
- N629092012089
Entities
People
- Teuta Pilizota
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Edinburgh