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Forces involved in bacterial adhesion to hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces

¹ Department of Biomedical Engineering, University Medical Center Groningen and University of Groningen, Antonius Deusinglaan 1, 9713 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
² Laboratory of Physical Chemistry and Colloid Science, Wageningen University, Dreijenplein 6, 6703 HB Wageningen, The Netherlands

Correspondence
Henny C. van der Mei
h.c.van.der.mei{at}med.umcg.nl

Using a parallel-plate flow chamber, the hydrodynamic shear forces to prevent bacterial adhesion (F_prev) and to detach adhering bacteria (F_det) were evaluated for hydrophilic glass, hydrophobic, dimethyldichlorosilane (DDS)-coated glass and six different bacterial strains, in order to test the following three hypotheses. 1. A strong hydrodynamic shear force to prevent adhesion relates to a strong hydrodynamic shear force to detach an adhering organism. 2. A weak hydrodynamic shear force to detach adhering bacteria implies that more bacteria will be stimulated to detach by passing an air–liquid interface (an air bubble) through the flow chamber. 3. DLVO (Derjaguin, Landau, Verwey, Overbeek) interactions determine the characteristic hydrodynamic shear forces to prevent adhesion and to detach adhering micro-organisms as well as the detachment induced by a passing air–liquid interface. F_prev varied from 0.03 to 0.70 pN, while F_det varied from 0.31 to over 19.64 pN, suggesting that after initial contact, strengthening of the bond occurs. Generally, it was more difficult to detach bacteria from DDS-coated glass than from hydrophilic glass, which was confirmed by air bubble detachment studies. Calculated attractive forces based on the DLVO theory (F_DLVO) towards the secondary interaction minimum were higher on glass than on DDS-coated glass. In general, all three hypotheses had to be rejected, showing that it is important to distinguish between forces acting parallel (hydrodynamic shear) and perpendicular (DLVO, air–liquid interface passages) to the substratum surface.

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