Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : June 05, 2019 - June 08, 2019
We are studying how to utilize microorganism as “Living Micromachines”. We found the importance of the operation tool to enhance the ability of the microorganisms by using large microorganisms (>200μm). In this study, we tried to attach small operation tool to small protists (< 50μm) and bacteria. We applied avidin/biotin reaction and optical tweezer system for the experiments. We succeeded to bond avidin beads on the aimed position of the biotin-coated microorganisms. We found that coating biotin to protists is very difficult, and we could not coat biotin without decreasing their physiological activity. In the case of bacteria, their physiological activity did not decrease by biotin coating. We found that the moving speed of bacteria with beads (d=3μm) is about 70% of the swimming speed of bacteria alone. It means that the microbeads function as an operation tool.
