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Journal article
Impacts of Hematite Nanoparticle Exposure on Biomechanical, Adhesive, and Surface Electrical Properties of Escherichia coli Cells
Applied and environmental microbiology, v 78(11), pp 3905-3915
01 Jun 2012
PMID: 22467500
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Despite a wealth of studies examining the toxicity of engineered nanomaterials, current knowledge on their cytotoxic mechanisms (particularly from a physical perspective) remains limited. In this work, we imaged and quantitatively characterized the biomechanical (hardness and elasticity), adhesive, and surface electrical properties of
Escherichia coli
cells with and without exposure to hematite nanoparticles (NPs) in an effort to advance our understanding of the cytotoxic impacts of nanomaterials. Both scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) showed that
E. coli
cells had noticeable deformation with hematite treatment for 45 min with a statistical significance. The hematite-treated cells became significantly harder or stiffer than untreated ones, as evidenced by indentation and spring constant measurements. The average indentation of the hematite-treated
E. coli
cells was 120 nm, which is significantly lower (
P
< 0.01) than that of the untreated cells (approximately 400 nm). The spring constant of hematite-treated
E. coli
cells (0.28 ± 0.11 nN/nm) was about 20 times higher than that of untreated ones (0.01 ± 0.01 nN/nm). The zeta potential of
E. coli
cells, measured by dynamic light scattering (DLS), was shown to shift from −4 ± 2 mV to −27 ± 8 mV with progressive surface adsorption of hematite NPs, a finding which is consistent with the local surface potential measured by Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM). Overall, the reported findings quantitatively revealed the adverse impacts of nanomaterial exposure on physical properties of bacterial cells and should provide insight into the toxicity mechanisms of nanomaterials.
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Details
- Title
- Impacts of Hematite Nanoparticle Exposure on Biomechanical, Adhesive, and Surface Electrical Properties of Escherichia coli Cells
- Creators
- Wen Zhang - Georgia Institute of TechnologyJoseph Hughes - Drexel UniversityYongsheng Chen - Georgia Institute of Technology
- Publication Details
- Applied and environmental microbiology, v 78(11), pp 3905-3915
- Publisher
- American Society for Microbiology
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000304185400016
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84864079275
- Other Identifier
- 991019169597304721
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InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
- Microbiology