• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
• /
• v.34 no.1
• /
• pp.89-94
• /
• 2010

Patterning bacteria and cells on substrates has potential applications in molecular biology, antimicrobial drug screening, environmental monitoring and tissue engineering. We developed a technique to deposit two-dimensional array of bacterial cells onto an agar plate by modifying commercially available thermal inkjet printers. The concentration of the bacterial solution in the cartridge was carefully determined to ensure a single cell suspension in a droplet ejected from a nozzle. We measured quantitatively the effects of the bacterial concentration and the agar concentration on patterning performance. Bacterial patterning by inkjet printer is a low-cost and versatile technique which may replace the existing sophisticated methods.

• KSBB Journal
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.273-278
• /
• 2006

The noble method of hybrid agarose gel microstamp fabricated by replica molding against PDMS master to make bacteria patterns on agar surface was presented. After the fabricated hybrid agarose gel microstamp was inked with E. coli, we could obtain 2 dimensional bacterial arrays with $50{\mu}m$ circular spots. And the various shaped patterns based on experimental design were easily generated. The analysis of mean fluorescent signal was showed that bacterial pattern have high contrast between spots and background and homogeneity of pattern. Our proposed method solved the problem of wetting and handling with small soft agarose gel microstamp when bacteria were used for ink. The agarose gel stamp provides appropriate environment to inked bacteria, which is essential technology for cell patterning with high retaining viability during the patterning process. This method is reproducible, convenient, rapid, and could be applied to screening system, study of cell-surface interaction, and microbial ecology.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.381-385
• /
• 2015

In the present study, drop-on-demand two-dimensional patterning of unstained and stained bacterial cells on untreated clean wafers was newly conducted using an electrospray pulsed jet. We produced various spotted patterns of the cells on a silicon wafer by varying the experimental conditions, such as the frequency, flow rate, and translational speed of the electrospray system in a two-dimensional manner. Specifically, the electrospray's pulsed jet of cell solutions produced alphabetical patterns consisting of spots with a diameter of approximately $10{\mu}m$, each of which contained a single or a small number of viable bacteria. We tested the viability of the patterned cells using two visualization methods. This pattering technique is newly tested here and it has the potential to be applied in a variety of cell biology experiments.

• Journal of Life Science
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.218-227
• /
• 2000

Bone morphogenetic protein 1 (BMP-1) is part of a complex capable of inducing ectopic bone formation in mammals. Studies on TGF-β1 processing and Drosophila dorsal-ventral patterning have focused attention on BMP-1 as important in mediating the biological activity of this bone inducing complex. Herein, the bacterial expression, refolding, purification, and initial characterization of the BMP-1 proteolytic domain (BPD) are described. A semi-quantitative fluorescence-based thin layer chromatography assay was developed to assist in rapidly screening for optimal renaturation conditions. According to a preliminary screen for optimal conditions for the refolding of BPD , a detectable proteolytic activity against a high turnover substrate for astacin, a homologous protease from crayfish was observed. The conditions identified have allowed the expression of sufficient amounts of BPD for the characterization of the protein. Its proteolytic activity exhibits the same cleavage specificity as astacin against seven substrates that were previously synthesized for studying astacin. Furthermore, this activity is inhibited by the metal chelator 1,10-phenanthroline but not by its analogue 1,7-phenanthroline. The collagenase inhibitor Pro-Leu-Gly hydroxamate was found to inhibit both astacin and BPD activity. The results presented in this paper argue that BMP-1 does in fact possess an intrinsic proteolytic activity.