Chapter 7 - Nanoscale imaging and force probing of single microbial cells by atomic force microscopy

Abstract

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has achieved great success in revealing the biophysical cues in the activities of single living microbial cells, and the applications of AFM in microbiology have contributed much to the field of mechanomicrobiology. In this chapter, typical applications of AFM in characterizing the structures and mechanical properties, as well as molecular activities of single living microbial cells, are surveyed, mainly including imaging the fine structures on the cell surface, capturing structural dynamics of single cells, measuring the mechanical properties of single microbes, probing individual molecular activities on the cell surface, quantifying the adhesive forces of single microbes, simultaneous structural and mechanical imaging of microbial behaviors, and real-time sensing of microbial activities.