Summer Internship Summary Paper

Hill, H D

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

关键词: Fine Structure;    Bacillus;    Processing;    37 Inorganic, Organic, Physical And Analytical Chemistry;    59 Basic Biological Sciences;   

DOI  :  10.2172/929164
RP-ID  :  UCRL-TR-223674
RP-ID  :  W-7405-ENG-48
RP-ID  :  929164

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

The visualization of biological molecules and assemblies can provide enormous insight into protein structure-function relationships, as well as practical applications to fields such as microbial forensics. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a powerful tool for imaging soft biomaterials such as cells, spores, and proteins with nanometer resolution. The goal of this work is to understand pathogen architecture and its application to microbial forensics and medicine. Initial work has focused on imaging Bacillus species; both live cells and dormant spores. Experiments have shown AFM capable of visualizing the fine structures of cell wall peptidoglycan and spore coat proteins. Work completed thus far indicates that AFM will be able to resolve some persistent questions in microbiology concerning structure-function relationships at cell surfaces, as well as assist in understanding the formulation and processing of spores used for bio-terrorism. In addition to imaging results, we have developed a robust method for the attachment of cells to surfaces for imaging in liquid.