Wettability and bacteria attachment evaluation of multilayer proteases films for biosensor application

Facile deposition of biogenic silver nanoparticles on porous alumina discs, an efficient antimicrobial, antibiofilm, and antifouling strategy for functional contact surfaces

Surface modification is an emerging strategy for the design of contact materials. Fabricated alumina discs were functionalized by deposition of biogenic silver nanoparticles. The surfaces were characterized for physico-chemical, antibacterial and antibiofilm properties against microbial pathogens. The surface demonstrated improved hydrophobicity and a surface silver nanoparticle content of 6.4 w%. A reduction of more than 99.9% in CFU mL^-i was observed against the Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria tested, with >90% reduction of the fungal isolate. After 4 h, microbial adhesion was reduced by >99.9 and 90% for Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, respectively. Scanning electron micrographs further revealed a biofilm reduction. Cell viability tests indicated a bioincompatibility higher than 80% with Caco-2 and HaCaT cell lines after 48 h contact. The results suggest that deposition of biogenic silver nanoparticles on the surface of contact materials could be employed as a strategy to prevent biofilm formation.

Polymer Brush-GaAs Interface and Its Use as an Antibody-Compatible Platform for Biosensing

Despite evidence showing that polymer brushes (PBs) are a powerful tool used in biosensing for minimizing nonspecific interactions, allowing for optimization of biosensing performance, and the fact that GaAs semiconductors have proven to have a remarkable potential for sensitive biomolecule detection, the combination of these two robust components has never been considered nor evaluated as a platform for biosensing applications. This work reports different methodologies to prepare and tune PBs on the GaAs interface (PB-GaAs) and their potential as useful platforms for antibody grafting, with the ultimate goal of demonstrating the innovative and attractive character of the PB-GaAs interfaces in the enhanced capture of antibodies and control of nonspecific interactions. Three different functionalization approaches were explored, one "grafting-to" and two "grafting-from," in which atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) was performed, followed by their corresponding characterizations. Demonstration of the compatibility of Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Legionella pneumophila (Lp) antibodies with the PB-GaAs platform compared to the results obtained with conventional biosensing architectures developed for GaAs indicates the attractive potential for operation of a sensitive biosensor. Furthermore, these results showed that by carefully choosing the nature and preparation methodology of a PB-GaAs interface, it is possible to effectively tune the affinity of PB-GaAs-based sensors toward E. coli and Lp antibodies ultimately demonstrating the superior specificity of the developed biosensing platform.

Investigating wettability alteration during MEOR process, a micro/macro scale analysis

Wettability alteration is considered to be one of the important mechanisms that lead to increased oil recovery during microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) processes. Changes in wettability will greatly influence the petrophysical properties of the reservoir rocks and determine the location, flow and distribution of different fluids inside the porous media. Understanding the active mechanisms of surface wettability changes by the bacteria would help to optimize the condition for more oil recovery. As the mechanisms behind wettability alteration are still poorly understood, the objective of this study is to investigate the wettability alteration at pore scale and find the most effective mechanism of wettability changes in different cases. The experiments were performed on different substrates at fresh condition or aged in crude oil to mimic various wetting conditions. Using an Enterobacter cloacae strain, the influence of bacterial metabolites, bacterial adhesion and bacterial solution with two different carbon sources on wettability were determined for different aging periods. Contact angle measurements were used to quantify the wettability alteration of the solid surfaces. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) experiments were also utilized to combine the macroscopic measurements of wettability with the microscopic study of the surface changes. It was found that the surface wettability could vary from neutral- or oil-wet to water-wet state. Bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation seems to be the dominant mechanism of wettability alteration. The aged glass surfaces regained their initial water wetness where the bacteria could remove the polar and asphaltene compounds from them.