Recent progress in microbial nanoscopy

How microbial cell walls are spatially organized and how they interact with their environment are important questions in current microbiology, which today are still largely unsolved owing to the lack of high-resolution probing techniques. This article surveys recent research carried out in the Dufrêne laboratory that substantially contributed to the growth of the exciting new field of microbial nanoscopy, i.e. the application of atomic force microscopy (AFM) to microbial cells. We are studying the molecular surface architecture, properties and interactions of bacteria and yeasts using advanced AFM methods (high-resolution imaging of live cells, single-molecule imaging and manipulation with functionalized tips) combined with fluorescence, genetics and cell biology approaches. This enables us to answer pertinent biological questions that are traditionally difficult to address, such as what is the supramolecular architecture of microbial cell walls? How do they remodel during cell growth or incubation with drugs? What is the spatial arrangement of cell surface receptors? What are the adhesive and mechanical properties of cell surface proteins? In the future, we expect that AFMbased nanoscopy should have an important impact on nanomedicine by providing detailed insights into microbe-drug and microbe-host interactions. Corresponding author details