RESEARCH ARTICLE
AFM Specific Identification of Bacterial Cell Fragments on Biofunctional Surfaces
Evgeniy V Dubrovin*, 1, Galina N Fedyukina2, Sergey V Kraevsky3, Tatiana E Ignatyuk3, Igor V Yaminsky1, Sergei G Ignatov2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2012Volume: 6
First Page: 22
Last Page: 28
Publisher ID: TOMICROJ-6-22
DOI: 10.2174/1874285801206010022
Article History:
Received Date: 8/12/2011Revision Received Date: 5/1/2012
Acceptance Date: 9/1/2012
Electronic publication date: 23/2/2012
Collection year: 2012

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Biointerfaces with a highly sensitive surface designed for specific interaction with biomolecules are essential approaches for providing advanced biochemical and biosensor assays. For the first time, we have introduced a simple AFM-based recognition system capable of visualizing specific bacterial nanofragments and identifying the corresponding bacterial type. For this we developed AFM-adjusted procedures for preparing IgG-based surfaces and subsequently exposing them to antigens. The AFM images reveal the specific binding of Escherichia coli cell fragments to the prepared biofunctional surfaces. Moreover, the binding of bacterial cell fragments to the affinity surfaces can be characterized quantitatively, indicating a 30-fold to 80-fold increase in the quantity of bound antigenic material in the case of a specific antigen-antibody pair. Our results demonstrate significant opportunities for developing reliable sensing procedures for detecting pathogenic bacteria, and the cell can still be identified after it is completely destroyed.