Detecting the Undetectable: Using Laser Interference Patterns to Study the Biophysics of Antibiotic Resistance
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Melnikova, Antonina
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Abstract
Many species of bacteria have become resistant to previously clinically effective antibiotics, or even resistant to multiple drugs. Despite the growing urge for research in the field, antibiotic resistance is typically studied on agar plates that do not resemble the interior of the human body. Researchers have recently created a medium that closely models the sputum of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, in whom the infection is a major cause of lung disease due to the patients’ dulled immune response and the bacteria’s mobility. This mobility is tied to the underlying biophysics, the way that bacteria traverse the medium in which they replicate. However, this synthetic CF sputum media (SCFM2) is so opaque that common methods of detecting bacterial growth cannot be utilized. Thus, an alternative technique appropriate for studying bacterial growth in this highly useful medium needs to be developed. One such method is imaging the motion of bacteria via laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI). Studying bacteria-antibiotic interactions in a realistic medium is vital for understanding bacterial dynamics. From a drug development viewpoint, it is critical to understand bacterial physical properties and resistance mechanisms, including the release of chemicals, binding mechanics, and the bacteria’s movement, the latter being the focus of this work. Some research has already demonstrated that LSCI is an effective method for studying bacterial kinetics in traditional media. As a low-cost technique with high spatial resolution, LSCI could broaden access to bacterial motion studies in resource-limited labs. Hence, the development of an appropriate laser speckle imaging method for SCFM2 could allow for more accurate and cost-efficient study of bacterial dynamics within a more realistic medium. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of LSCI in capturing motility topography of bacterial populations in SCFM2.
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Undergraduate Research Option Thesis