pH-Taxis of Biohybrid Microsystems

The last decade has seen an increasing number of studies developing bacteria and other cell-integrated biohybrid microsystems. However, the highly stochastic motion of these microsystems severely limits their potential use. Here, we present a method that exploits the pH sensing of flagellated bacter...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2015-06, Vol.5 (1), p.11403-11403, Article 11403
Main Authors: Zhuang, Jiang, Wright Carlsen, Rika, Sitti, Metin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
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Bacteria
Body fluids
Chemotaxis
Drift
Drug delivery
Genetic engineering
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
pH effects
Science
Stochasticity
Swimming
Taxis
Thermotaxis
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Summary:The last decade has seen an increasing number of studies developing bacteria and other cell-integrated biohybrid microsystems. However, the highly stochastic motion of these microsystems severely limits their potential use. Here, we present a method that exploits the pH sensing of flagellated bacteria to realize robust drift control of multi-bacteria propelled microrobots. Under three specifically configured pH gradients, we demonstrate that the microrobots exhibit both unidirectional and bidirectional pH-tactic behaviors, which are also observed in free-swimming bacteria. From trajectory analysis, we find that the swimming direction and speed biases are two major factors that contribute to their tactic drift motion. The motion analysis of microrobots also sheds light on the propulsion dynamics of the flagellated bacteria as bioactuators. It is expected that similar driving mechanisms are shared among pH-taxis, chemotaxis and thermotaxis. By identifying the mechanism that drives the tactic behavior of bacteria-propelled microsystems, this study opens up an avenue towards improving the control of biohybrid microsystems. Furthermore, assuming that it is possible to tune the preferred pH of bioactuators by genetic engineering, these biohybrid microsystems could potentially be applied to sense the pH gradient induced by cancerous cells in stagnant fluids inside human body and realize targeted drug delivery.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep11403