A Printed Nanoliter-Scale Bacterial Sensor Array

The last decade has witnessed a significant increase in interest in whole-cell biosensors for diverse applications, as well as a rapid and continuous expansion of array technologies. The combination of these two disciplines has yielded the notion of whole-cell array biosensors. We present a potential manifestation of this idea by describing the printing of a whole-cell bacterial bioreporters array. Exploiting natural bacterial tendency to adhere to positively charged a-biotic surfaces, we describe immobilization and patterning of bacterial ¿spots¿ in the nanoliter volume range by a non-contact robotic arrayer. We show that the printed Escherichia coli-based sensor bacteria are immobilized on the surface, and retain their viability and biosensing activity for at least 2 months when kept at 4 oC. Immobilization efficiency was improved by manipulating the bacterial genetics (overproducing curli protein), the growth and printing media (osmotic stress and osmoprotectants) and by a chemical modification of the inanimate surface (self-assembled layers of 3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane). We suggest that the methodology presented herein may be applicable to the manufacturing of whole-cell sensor arrays for diverse high throughput applications.

MELAMED S.;  CERIOTTI Laura;  WEIGEL W.;  ROSSI Francois;  COLPO Pascal;  BELKIN S.; 

2010-12-13

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY

JRC59431

1473-0197,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC59431,   

10.1039/c0lc00243g,