Plant-environment microscopy tracks interactions of Bacillus subtilis with plant roots across the entire rhizosphere.

Our understanding of plant-microbe interactions in soil is limited by the difficulty of observing processes at the microscopic scale throughout plants' large volume of influence. Here, we present the development of three-dimensional live microscopy for resolving plant-microbe interactions across the environment of an entire seedling growing in a transparent soil in tailor-made mesocosms, maintaining physical conditions for the culture of both plants and microorganisms. A tailor-made, dual-illumination light sheet system acquired photons scattered from the plant while fluorescence emissions were simultaneously captured from transparent soil particles and labeled microorganisms, allowing the generation of quantitative data on samples ∼3,600 mm3 in size, with as good as 5 µm resolution at a rate of up to one scan every 30 min. The system tracked the movement of Bacillus subtilis populations in the rhizosphere of lettuce plants in real time, revealing previously unseen patterns of activity. Motile bacteria favored small pore spaces over the surface of soil particles, colonizing the root in a pulsatile manner. Migrations appeared to be directed toward the root cap, the point of "first contact," before the subsequent colonization of mature epidermis cells. Our findings show that microscopes dedicated to live environmental studies present an invaluable tool to understand plant-microbe interactions.

High-resolution 3D mapping of rhizosphere glycan patterning using molecular probes in a transparent soil system.

Rhizospheres are microecological zones at the interface of roots and soils. Interactions between bacteria and roots are critical for maintaining plant and soil health but are difficult to study because of constraints inherent in working with underground systems. We have developed an in-situ rhizosphere imaging system based on transparent soils and molecular probes that can be imaged using confocal microscopy. We observed spatial patterning of polysaccharides along roots and on cells deposited into the rhizosphere and also co-localised fluorescently tagged soil bacteria. These studies provide insight into the complex glycan landscape of rhizospheres and suggest a means by which root / rhizobacteria interactions can be non-disruptively studied.

Flagellin based biomimetic coatings: From cell-repellent surfaces to highly adhesive coatings.

UNLABELLED: Biomimetic coatings with cell-adhesion-regulating functionalities are intensively researched today. For example, cell-based biosensing for drug development, biomedical implants, and tissue engineering require that the surface adhesion of living cells is well controlled. Recently, we have shown that the bacterial flagellar protein, flagellin, adsorbs through its terminal segments to hydrophobic surfaces, forming an oriented monolayer and exposing its variable D3 domain to the solution. Here, we hypothesized that this nanostructured layer is highly cell-repellent since it mimics the surface of the flagellar filaments. Moreover, we proposed flagellin as a carrier molecule to display the cell-adhesive RGD (Arg-Gly-Asp) peptide sequence and induce cell adhesion on the coated surface. The D3 domain of flagellin was replaced with one or more RGD motifs linked by various oligopeptides modulating flexibility and accessibility of the inserted segment. The obtained flagellin variants were applied to create surface coatings inducing cell adhesion and spreading to different levels, while wild-type flagellin was shown to form a surface layer with strong anti-adhesive properties. As reference surfaces synthetic polymers were applied which have anti-adhesive (PLL-g-PEG poly(l-lysine)-graft-poly(ethylene glycol)) or adhesion inducing properties (RGD-functionalized PLL-g-PEG). Quantitative adhesion data was obtained by employing optical biochips and microscopy. Cell-adhesion-regulating coatings can be simply formed on hydrophobic surfaces by using the developed flagellin-based constructs. The developed novel RGD-displaying flagellin variants can be easily obtained by bacterial production and can serve as alternatives to create cell-adhesion-regulating biomimetic coatings. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: In the present work, we show for the first time that.

Incubator proof miniaturized Holomonitor to in situ monitor cancer cells exposed to green tea polyphenol and preosteoblast cells adhering on nanostructured titanate surfaces: validity of the measured parameters and their corrections.

The in situ observation of cell movements and morphological parameters over longer periods of time under physiological conditions is critical in basic cell research and biomedical applications. The quantitative phase-contrast microscope applied in this study has a remarkably small size, therefore it can be placed directly into a humidified incubator. Here, we report on the successful application of this M4 Holomonitor to observe cancer cell motility, motility speed, and migration in the presence of the green tea polyphenol, epigallocatechin gallate, as well as to monitor the adhesion of preosteoblast cells on nanostructured titanate coatings, relevant for biomedical applications. A special mechanical stage was developed to position the sample into that range of the optical arrangement where digital autofocusing works with high reproducibility and precision. By in-depth analyzing the obtained single cell morphological parameters, we show that the limited vertical resolution of the optical setup results in underestimated single cell contact area and volume and overestimated single cell averaged thickness. We propose a simple model to correct the recorded data to obtain more precise single cell parameters. We compare the results with the kinetic data recorded by a surface sensitive optical biosensor, optical waveguide lightmode spectroscopy.

Xylan-Degrading Catalytic Flagellar Nanorods.

Flagellin, the main component of flagellar filaments, is a protein possessing polymerization ability. In this work, a novel fusion construct of xylanase A from B. subtilis and Salmonella flagellin was created which is applicable to build xylan-degrading catalytic nanorods of high stability. The FliC-XynA chimera when overexpressed in a flagellin deficient Salmonella host strain was secreted into the culture medium by the flagellum-specific export machinery allowing easy purification. Filamentous assemblies displaying high surface density of catalytic sites were produced by ammonium sulfate-induced polymerization. FliC-XynA nanorods were resistant to proteolytic degradation and preserved their enzymatic activity for a long period of time. Furnishing enzymes with self-assembling ability to build catalytic nanorods offers a promising alternative approach to enzyme immobilization onto nanostructured synthetic scaffolds.

Label-free in situ optical monitoring of the adsorption of oppositely charged metal nanoparticles.

The mechanism of alternating deposition of oppositely charged gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) was investigated by optical waveguide lightmode spectroscopy (OWLS). OWLS allows monitoring of the kinetics of layer-by-layer (LbL) adsorption of positively and negatively charged nanoparticles in real time without using any labels so that the dynamics of layer formation can be revealed. Positively charged NPs that are already deposited on a negatively charged glass substrate strongly facilitate the adsorption of the negatively charged particles. The morphology of the adsorbed layer was also investigated with atomic force microscopy (AFM). AFM revealed that the interaction between oppositely charged particles results in the formation of NP clusters with sizes varying between 100 and 6000 NPs. The cluster size distribution is found to be an exponentially decaying function, and we propose a simple theory to explain this finding.

Sample handling in surface sensitive chemical and biological sensing: a practical review of basic fluidics and analyte transport.

This paper gives an overview of the advantages and associated caveats of the most common sample handling methods in surface-sensitive chemical and biological sensing. We summarize the basic theoretical and practical considerations one faces when designing and assembling the fluidic part of the sensor devices. The influence of analyte size, the use of closed and flow-through cuvettes, the importance of flow rate, tubing length and diameter, bubble traps, pressure-driven pumping, cuvette dead volumes, and sample injection systems are all discussed. Typical application areas of particular arrangements are also highlighted, such as the monitoring of cellular adhesion, biomolecule adsorption-desorption and ligand-receptor affinity binding. Our work is a practical review in the sense that for every sample handling arrangement considered we present our own experimental data and critically review our experience with the given arrangement. In the experimental part we focus on sample handling in optical waveguide lightmode spectroscopy (OWLS) measurements, but the present study is equally applicable for other biosensing technologies in which an analyte in solution is captured at a surface and its presence is monitored. Explicit attention is given to features that are expected to play an increasingly decisive role in determining the reliability of (bio)chemical sensing measurements, such as analyte transport to the sensor surface; the distorting influence of dead volumes in the fluidic system; and the appropriate sample handling of cell suspensions (e.g. their quasi-simultaneous deposition). At the appropriate places, biological aspects closely related to fluidics (e.g. cellular mechanotransduction, competitive adsorption, blood flow in veins) are also discussed, particularly with regard to their models used in biosensing.

Optical anisotropy of flagellin layers: in situ and label-free measurement of adsorbed protein orientation using OWLS.

The surface adsorption of the protein flagellin was followed in situ using optical waveguide lightmode spectroscopy (OWLS). Flagellin did not show significant adsorption on a hydrophilic waveguide, but very rapidly formed a dense monolayer on a hydrophobic (silanized) surface. The homogeneous and isotropic optical layer model, which has hitherto been generally applied in OWLS data interpretation for adsorbed protein films, failed to characterize the flagellin layer, but it could be successfully modeled as an uniaxial thin film. This anisotropic modeling revealed a significant positive birefringence in the layer, suggesting oriented protein adsorption. The adsorbed flagellin orientation was further evidenced by monitoring the surface adsorption of truncated flagellin variants, in which the terminal protein regions or the central (D3) domain were removed. Without the terminal regions the protein adsorption was much slower and the resulting films were significantly less birefringent, implying that intact flagellin adsorbs on the hydrophobic surface via its terminal regions.

Single beam grating coupled interferometry: high resolution miniaturized label-free sensor for plate based parallel screening.

Grating Coupled Interferometry (GCI) using high quality waveguides with two incoupling and one outcoupling grating areas is introduced to increase and precisely control the sensing length of the device; and to make the sensor design suitable for plate-based multiplexing. In contrast to other interferometric arrangements, the sensor chips are interrogated with a single expanded laser beam illuminating both incoupling gratings simultaneously. In order to obtain the interference signal, only half of the beam is phase modulated using a laterally divided two-cell liquid crystal modulator. The developed highly symmetrical arrangement of the interferometric arms increases the stability and at the same time offers straightforward integration of parallel sensing channels. The device characteristics are demonstrated for both TE and TM polarized modes.