Polymer and Organic Materials Commons^™

Getting To The Root Of Bacterial Hairs: What Is “S”?, Rebecca Gaddis, Samantha O'Conner, Evan Anderson, Terri Camesano, Nancy Burnham

Nancy A. Burnham

An atomic force microscope (AFM) was used to measure the steric forces of lipopolysaccharides (LPS) on the biofilm-forming bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It is well known that LPS play a vital role in biofilm formation. These forces were characterized with a modified version of the Alexander and de Gennes (AdG) model for polymers, which is a function of equilibrium brush length, L, probe radius, R, temperature, T, separation distance, D, and an indefinite density variable, s. This last parameter was originally distinguished by de Gennes as the root spacing or mesh spacing depending upon the type of polymer adhesion; however since …