High-Resolution Architecture and Structural Dynamics of Microbial and Cellular Systems: Insights from in Vitro Atomic Force Microscopy

Abstract

One of the great scientific challenges at the intersection of chemistry, biology and materials science is to define the biophysical pathways of cellular life, and in particular, to elucidate the complex molecular machines that carry out cellular and microbial function and propagate the disease. To study this in a comprehensive way, the fundamental understanding of the principal mechanisms by which cellular systems are ultimately linked with their chemical, physical, and biological environment are required. Complete genome sequences are often available for understanding biotransformation, environmental resistance, and pathogenesis of microbial and cellular systems. The present technological and scientific challenges are to unravel the relationships between the organization and function of protein complexes at cell, microbial, and pathogen surfaces, to understand how these complexes evolve during the bacterial, cellular, and pathogen life cycles, and how they respond to environmental changes, chemical stimulants, and therapeutics. Development of atomic force microscopy (AFM) for probing the architecture and assembly of single microbial surfaces at a nanometer scale under native conditions, and unraveling of its structural dynamics in response to changes in the environment has the capacity to significantly enhance the current insight into molecular architecture, structural and environmental variability of cellular and microbial systems as a function of spatial, developmental, and temporal organizational scales.