Name: generating controlled, dynamic chemical landscapes to study microbial behavior
Uploaded: 2020-01-31T14:30:00
Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Generating Controlled, Dynamic Chemical Landscapes to Study Microbial Behavior at JoVE.com

The authors thank the FIRST microfabrication facility at ETH Zurich. This work was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award DE180100911 (to D.R.B.), a Gordon and Betty Moore Marine Microbial Initiative Investigator Award GBMF3783 (to R.S.), and a Swiss National Science Foundation grant 1-002745-000 (to R.S.).

1. Fabrication of the Microfluidic Device for the Single Chemical-pulse Experiment
<ol>
	<li>Design the channel using computer-aided design (CAD) software and print it onto a transparency film to create the photo mask (Figure 1A).</li>
	<li>Fabricate the master by soft lithography (under clean-room conditions).
	<ol>
		<li>Clean a silicon wafer (4 inches) in quick succession with acetone, methanol and isopropanol, then dry using nitrogen. Bake the wafer in the oven at 130 ...

<ol>
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R., et al. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Bacteria+push+the+limits+of+chemotactic+precision+to+navigate+dynamic+chemical+gradients.">Bacteria push the limits of chemotactic precision to navigate dynamic chemical gradients.</a> Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 116 (22), 10792-10797 (2019).</li><li>Aran, K., Sasso, L. A., Kamdar, N., Zahn, J. D. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Irreversible,+direct+bonding+of+nanoporous+polymer+membranes+to+PDMS+or+glass+microdevices.">Irreversible, direct bonding of nanoporous polymer membranes to PDMS or glass microdevices.</a> Lab on a Chip. 10 (5), 548 (2010).</li><li>ZoBell, C. E. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=The+cultural+requirements+of+heterotrophic+aerobes.">The cultural requirements of heterotrophic aerobes.</a> Journal of Marine Research. 4, 42-75 (1941).</li><li>Canepari, M., Nelson, L., Papageorgiou, G., Corrie, J. E. T., Ogden, D. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Photochemical+and+pharmacological+evaluation+of+7-nitroindolinyl-and+4-methoxy-7-nitroindolinyl-amino+acids+as+novel,+fast+caged+neurotransmitters.">Photochemical and pharmacological evaluation of 7-nitroindolinyl-and 4-methoxy-7-nitroindolinyl-amino acids as novel, fast caged neurotransmitters.</a> Journal of Neuroscience Methods. 112 (1), 29-42 (2001).</li><li>Trigo, F. F., Corrie, J. E. T., Ogden, D. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Laser+photolysis+of+caged+compounds+at+405nm:+Photochemical+advantages,+localisation,+phototoxicity+and+methods+for+calibration.">Laser photolysis of caged compounds at 405nm: Photochemical advantages, localisation, phototoxicity and methods for calibration.</a> Journal of Neuroscience Methods. 180 (1), 9-21 (2009).</li><li>Ribeiro, A. C. F. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Mutual+diffusion+coefficients+of+L-glutamic+acid+and+monosodium+L-glutamate+in+aqueous+solutions+at+T=298.15K.">Mutual diffusion coefficients of L-glutamic acid and monosodium L-glutamate in aqueous solutions at T=298.15K.</a> The Journal of Chemical Thermodynamics. 74, 133-137 (2014).</li><li>Sharqawy, M. H., Lienhard, J. H., Zubair, S. 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Implications for remote detection by colonizing zooplankters.</a> Marine Ecology Progress Series. 211, 15-25 (2001).</li><li>Blackburn, N., Fenchel, T., Mitchell, J. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Microscale+nutrient+patches+in+planktonic+habitats+shown+by+chemotactic+bacteria.">Microscale nutrient patches in planktonic habitats shown by chemotactic bacteria.</a> Science. 282 (5397), 2254-2256 (1998).</li><li>Stocker, R., Seymour, J. R., Samadani, A., Hunt, D. E., Polz, M. 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This method allows researchers to study bacterial chemotaxis under controlled, dynamic gradients in micro- and millifluidic devices, enabling reproducible data acquisition. The near-instantaneous creation of chemical pulses at the microscale by photolysis aims to reproduce the types of nutrient pulses that bacteria encounter in the wild from a range of sources, for example, the diffusive spreading of plumes behind sinking marine particles25, or the nutrient spreading from lysed phytoplankton cells...

Microbes rely on chemotaxis, the process of detecting chemical gradients and modifying motility in response1, to navigate chemical landscapes, approach nutrient sources and hosts, and escape noxious substances. These microscale processes determine the macroscale kinetics of interactions between microbes and their environment2,3. Recent advances in microfluidics and microfabrication technologies, including soft lithography4, have revolutionized our ability to create controlled microenvironments in which to study the interactions of microbes. For example, past experiments have studied bacterial chemotaxis by generating highly controlled, stable gradients of intermediate to high nutrient concentrations5,6. However, in natural environments, microscale chemical gradients can be short-lived&#8213;dissipated by molecular diffusion&#8213;and background conditions are often highly dilute7. To directly measure the chemotactic response of microbial populations first exposed to unsteady chemical environments, we devised and here describe methods to combine microfluidic technology with photolysis, thereby mimicking gradients that wild bacteria encounter in nature.
Uncaging technology employs light sensitive probes that functionally encapsulate biomolecules in an inactive form. Irradiation releases the caged molecule, allowing the targeted perturbation of a biological process8. Due to the rapid and precise control of cellular chemistry that the uncaging affords9, photolysis of caged compounds has traditionally been employed by biologists, physiologists and neuroscientists to study the activation of genes10, ion channels11, and neurons12. More recently, scientists have leveraged the significant advantages of photolysis to study chemotaxis13, to determine the flagella switching dynamics of individual bacterial cells exposed to a stepwise chemoattractant stimulus14,15, and to investigate motility patterns of single sperm cells in three-dimensional (3D) gradients16.
In our approach, we implement photolysis of caged amino acids within microfluidic devices to study the behavioral response of a bacterial population to controlled chemical pulses, which become near-instantaneously available through photorelease. The use of a low-magnification (4x) objective (NA = 0.13, depth of focus approximately 40 &#956;m) allows both the observation of the population-level aggregative response of thousands of bacteria over a large field of view (3.2 mm x 3.2 mm), and the measurement of motion at the single-cell level. We present two applications of this method: 1) the release of a single chemical pulse to study bacterial accumulation&#8722;dissipation dynamics starting from uniform conditions, and 2i) the release of multiple pulses to characterize the bacterial accumulation dynamics under time-varying, spatially heterogeneous chemoattractant conditions. This method has been tested on the marine bacteria Vibrio ordalii performing chemotaxis toward the amino acid glutamate17, but the method is broadly applicable to different combinations of species and chemoattractants, as well as to biological processes beyond chemotaxis (e.g., nutrient uptake, antibiotic exposure, quorum sensing). This approach promises to help elucidate the ecology and behavior of microorganisms in realistic environments and to uncover the hidden trade-offs that individual bacteria face when navigating ephemeral dynamic gradients.

<table border="1" fo:keep-together.within-page="1" fo:keep-with-next.within-page="always">
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>(3-Aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES)</td>
			<td>Sigma-Aldrich</td>
			<td>A3648</td>
			<td>&#62;98% purity, highly toxic</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>CELLSTAR tube</td>
			<td>Greiner Bio-One</td>
			<td>210261</td>
			<td>50 ml</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Centrifuge</td>
			<td>Eppendorf</td>
			<td>5424R</td>
			<td>to eliminate spent media from the bacterial culture</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Digital Incubators Incu-Line</td>
			<td>VWR-CH</td>
			<td>390-0384</td>
			<td>to bake 3D master</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Duster</td>
			<td>VWR-CH</td>
			<td>16650-22</td>
			<td>to clean the wafer and microchannels</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Hot plate</td>
			<td>VWR-CH</td>
			<td>444-0601</td>
			<td>to bond the microchannels</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Isopropanol</td>
			<td>Sigma-Aldrich</td>
			<td>W292907</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>LightSafe micro centrifuge tubes</td>
			<td>Sigma-Aldrich</td>
			<td>Z688312</td>
			<td>1.5 ml</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>MATLAB</td>
			<td>Mathworks</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>for image analysis and bacterial tracking</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Microcentrifuge tube</td>
			<td>Eppendorf</td>
			<td>30120086</td>
			<td>1.5 ml</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Microscope glass slide</td>
			<td>VWR-CH</td>
			<td>631-1552</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Microscope Nikon Eclipse TiE</td>
			<td>Nikon Instruments</td>
			<td>MEA53100</td>
			<td>with motorized stage</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>MNI-Glutamate</td>
			<td>Tocris Bioscience</td>
			<td>1490</td>
			<td>&#62;98 % purity, photosensitive</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Mold printing equipment</td>
			<td>Stratasys</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Objet30 3D printer</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Mold printing service</td>
			<td>3D Printing Studios</td>
			<td>Custom</td>
			<td><a href="https://www.3dprintingstudios.com/" target="_blank">https://www.3dprintingstudios.com/</a></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Nanodrop One UV-Vis Spectrophotometer</td>
			<td>Thermo Fisher Scientific</td>
			<td>ND-ONE-W</td>
			<td>to calibrate the uncaging</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>NIS Elements</td>
			<td>Nikon Instruments</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Microscope Imaging Software</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Oven Venti-Line</td>
			<td>VWR-CH</td>
			<td>466-3516</td>
			<td>to bake PDMS (with forced convection)</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Photoresist SU-8-3050</td>
			<td>MicroChem Corp.</td>
			<td>SU8-3050</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Plasma chamber Zepto</td>
			<td>Diener Electronic</td>
			<td>ZEPTO-1</td>
			<td>to functionalize the surfaces before bonding</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Polycarbonate membrane</td>
			<td>Sterlitech</td>
			<td>PCT0447100</td>
			<td>0.4 &#181;m pore size, 19 % open area, 24 &#181;m thickness</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Polyethylene microtubing</td>
			<td>Scientific Commodities</td>
			<td>BB31695-PE/2</td>
			<td>I.D. x O.D.: 0.015&#34; x 0.043&#34; / 0.38mm x 1.09mm</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Polystyrene Petri dish</td>
			<td>VWR-CH</td>
			<td>25373-100</td>
			<td>bottom surface (90 mm x 15 mm) to bond the millifluidic device</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Scale</td>
			<td>VWR-CH</td>
			<td>611-2605</td>
			<td>to weight PDMS mixture</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>sCMOS camera Andor Zyla</td>
			<td>Oxford Instruments</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>for phase contrast and fluorescence microscopy (max 100 fps)</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Sea salt</td>
			<td>Instant Ocean</td>
			<td>Product No. SS1-160p</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>SolidWorks 2015</td>
			<td>Dassault Systemes SolidWorks</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Used to design the mold</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Spectra X light engine</td>
			<td>Lumencolor</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>for LED 395 nm</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Sylgard 184</td>
			<td>Dow Corning</td>
			<td>110-41-155</td>
			<td>PDMS Si Elastomer Kit; curing agent</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Syringe (Luer-Lok)</td>
			<td>B Braun Omnifix</td>
			<td>4616308F</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Syringe Needle</td>
			<td>Agani</td>
			<td>A228</td>
			<td>from 10 to 30 ml</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Syringe Pump 11 Pico Plus Elite</td>
			<td>Harvard Apparatus</td>
			<td>70-4506</td>
			<td>Terumo Agani 23 gauge 5/8 inch (16mm)</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>VeroGrey</td>
			<td>Stratasys</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Dual Syringe Pump</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Vortex-Genie</td>
			<td>Scientific Industries</td>
			<td>SI-0236</td>
			<td>Mold Material</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

generating controlled, dynamic chemical landscapes to study microbial behavior

We demonstrate a method for the generation of controlled, dynamic chemical pulses&#8213;where localized chemoattractant becomes suddenly available at the microscale&#8213;to create micro-environments for microbial chemotaxis experiments. To create chemical pulses, we developed a system to introduce amino acid sources near-instantaneously by photolysis of caged amino acids within a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic chamber containing a bacterial suspension. We applied this method to the chemotactic bacterium, Vibrio ordalii, which can actively climb these dynamic chemical gradients while being tracked by video microscopy. Amino acids, rendered biologically inert (&#39;caged&#39;) by chemical modification with a photoremovable protecting group, are uniformly present in the suspension but not available for consumption until their sudden release, which occurs at user-defined points in time and space by means of a near-UV-A focused LED beam. The number of molecules released in the pulse can be determined by a calibration relationship between exposure time and uncaging fraction, where the absorption spectrum after photolysis is characterized by using UV-Vis spectroscopy. A nanoporous polycarbonate (PCTE) membrane can be integrated into the microfluidic device to allow the continuous removal by flow of the uncaged compounds and the spent media. A strong, irreversible bond between the PCTE membrane and the PDMS microfluidic structure is achieved by coating the membrane with a solution of 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) followed by plasma activation of the surfaces to be bonded. A computer-controlled system can generate user-defined sequences of pulses at different locations and with different intensities, so as to create resource landscapes with prescribed spatial and temporal variability. In each chemical landscape, the dynamics of bacterial movement at the individual scale and their accumulation at the population level can be obtained, thereby allowing the quantification of chemotactic performance and its effects on bacterial aggregations in ecologically relevant environments.

We used the microfluidic and millifluidic devices (Figure 1) to study bacterial accumulation profiles under dynamic nutrient conditions. Bacterial trajectories were extracted from recorded videos acquired by phase contrast microscopy of the accumulation-dissipation dynamics of a bacterial population following a chemical pulse released by photolysis (Figure 2 and Figure 3). By averaging millions of trajectories, the spatiotemporal dy...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Generating Controlled, Dynamic Chemical Landscapes to Study Microbial Behavior at JoVE.com

Generating Controlled, Dynamic Chemical Landscapes to Study Microbial Behavior

A protocol for the generation of dynamic chemical landscapes by photolysis within microfluidic and millifluidic setups is presented. This methodology is suitable to study diverse biological processes, including the motile behavior, nutrient uptake, or adaptation to chemicals of microorganisms, both at the single cell and population level.

We demonstrate a method for the generation of controlled, dynamic chemical pulses&#8213;where localized chemoattractant becomes suddenly available at the ...

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Bioengineering

Micropatterned Surfaces to Study Hyaluronic Acid Interactions with Cancer Cells

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Design of a Cyclic Pressure Bioreactor for the Ex Vivo Study of Aortic Heart Valves

Design of a Cyclic Pressure Bioreactor for the Ex Vivo Study of Aortic Heart Valves

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Synthesis of an Intein-mediated Artificial Protein Hydrogel

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Blood, as a non-Newtonian biofluid, represents the focus of numerous studies in the hemorheology field. Blood constituents include red blood cells, white ...

A Novel Bioreactor for High Density Cultivation of Diverse Microbial Communities

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Alternating Magnetic Field-Responsive Hybrid Gelatin Microgels for Controlled Drug Release

Magnetically-responsive nano/micro-engineered biomaterials that enable a tightly controlled, on-demand drug delivery have been developed as new types of ...

Expanding Nanopatterned Substrates Using Stitch Technique for Nanotopographical Modulation of Cell Behavior

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Modeling Ovarian Cancer Multicellular Spheroid Behavior in a Dynamic 3D Peritoneal Microdevice

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Environmental Dynamic Mechanical Analysis to Predict the Softening Behavior of Neural Implants

When using dynamically softening substrates for neural implants, it is important to have a reliable in vitro method to characterize the softening behavior ...

Stepwise Cell Seeding on Tessellated Scaffolds to Study Sprouting Blood Vessels

The cardiovascular system is a key player in human physiology, providing nourishment to most tissues in the body; vessels are present in different sizes, ...