If the world can not be persuaded to use antibioticscarefully enoughto keep off harmful bacteriaacquiring resistancewe will have to come up with alternatives . Most proposals involveborrowing from natureto find enough new molecules to keep one footmark ahead of our tiny foeman , but one set of scientist have a more radical suggestion – stuff the little blighter until they pop .
The idea is not as mad as it seems . Mechano - bactericidal fabric have surfaces shaped so that bacterium that settle on them get punctured , for example by having “ pillars ” a few tens of nanometers wide but hundreds of micromillimeter high . These spike heel are not much use for kill an infection already inside your body , perhaps , but great for when aseptic equipment is expect . Moreover , certain nanoscale materials can kill bacteria in liquids , although it is debated whether this is primarily a forcible or chemical effect .
However , the details of how these surfaces and speck study are ill understood , which ready it hard to complicate them . Dr Cristina Florsof the Madrid Institute of Advanced Study In Nanoscience prepare out to resolve this situation by exercise out what force will put holes in a bacterium ’s cadre wall , peril its viscera to everything the walls commonly keep out .
InACS Applied Materials and Interfaces , Flors describes using a fluorescent mark that reveals whether an individual cell is viable or not and then applying an atomic force microscope toE. coliuntil they were n’t .
Unsurprisingly , there is no unmarried solution to the question posed . Flors found press softly on a bacterium ’s mobile phone wall repeatedly could reduce its resilience , make something correspondent to metallic element fatigue , moderate the wall to finally check under lower pressure than would otherwise be take .
This , Flors reckon , explains why colloidal nanomaterials can kill bacterium : frequent blue - layer collision with tiny particles in abeyance weaken the cell wall and eventually , even modest press break them . " Our work showcases how the development of advanced microscopy techniques can play a part to quantitatively understand the fundamental interaction between bacteria and nanomaterials , " Flors say in astatement .
On average , a force of about 20 nanoNewtons is required to breakE.coli’scell wall , Flors found , or about 5,000 times less than the weight unit of a fly .
Bacteria are immensely variable , so it is unbelievable one pattern applies universally . Being gram - negatively charged , E. colihas thin cell walls than Hans C. J. Gram - positively charged bacteria . Previous researchhas ground gram - prescribed bacteria are less vulnerable on mechano - bactericidal surfaces , indicate more force is involve to kill them .
