An optical tweezer-based study of antimicrobial activity of silver nanoparticles

Abstract

Understanding and characterizing microbial activity reduction in the presence of antimicrobial agents can help in the design and manufacture of antimicrobial drugs. We demonstrate the use of an optical tweezer setup in recording the changes in bacterial activity with time, induced by the presence of foreign bodies in a bacterial suspension. This is achieved by monitoring the fluctuations of an optically trapped polystyrene bead immersed in it. Examining the changes in the fluctuation pattern of the bead with time provides an accurate characterization of the reduction in the microbial activity. Here, we report on the effect of addition of silver nanoparticles on bacterial cultures of Pseudomonas aeroginosa, Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis. We observe a decrease in the bacterial activity with time for the investigated bacterial samples. This method in our opinion, enables one to track changes in bacterial activity levels as a function of time of contact with the antibacterial agent with greater efficacy than traditional cell counting methods. © Indian Academy of Sciences.