The overall goal of this thesis was to exploit the versatility of the polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) platform to consider bacteria‐substrata interactions by varying multilayer assembly and post‐assembly conditions. We developed multiple PEM systems to probe the ability of substrata to resist bacteria attachment or act as contact‐killing antimicrobials. In the first study, by varying the pH ...

Video feedforward is a solution-focused intervention used to improve desired behaviour. We present two case studies of using video feedforward in reactive attachment disorder. Children with reactive attachment disorder, their caregivers and their clinician completed storyboards of behaviours desired during a 'miracle day' and filmed the individual scenes. These scenes were edited to a prolonged...

Background: Nowadays, it is needed to explore new routes to treat infectious bacterial pathogens due to prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antimicrobial photothermal therapy (PTT), as a new strategy, eradicates pathogenic bacteria.Objective: In this study, the antimicrobial effects of a carbon nanoparticles-polypyrrole nanocomposite (C-PPy) upon laser irradiation were investigat...

The interaction of bacteria with surfaces has important implications in a range of areas, including bioenergy, biofouling, biofilm formation, and the infection of plants and animals. Many of the interactions of bacteria with surfaces produce changes in the expression of genes that influence cell morphology and behavior, including genes essential for motility and surface attachment. Despite the ...

During natural infection, gonococcal opacity proteins (Opa) undergo rapid phase variation, but how this phenomenon contributes to the virulence of the bacteria is not well understood. In the present immunomorphological study we examined the actual Opa status of individual gonococci during various stages of gonococcal infection of Chang epithelial cells, by probing ultrathin sections of infected...

The fate of the major outer membrane protein of the gonococcus, RIB, during the adherence, entry, and intracellular processing ofthe bacteria in infected epithelial cells was investigated using post-embedding immunoelectron microscopy. Various domains ofthe RIB molecule were probed at different stages in the infection. These studies revealed that RIB epitope exposure remained unaltered during t...

A survey of the extracellular ATP levels of 86 heterotrophic bacteria showed that gram-negative bacteria of the genera Sulfitobacter, Staleya, and Marinobacter secreted elevated amounts of extracellular ATP, ranging from 6.0 to 9.8 pM ATP/colony forming unit (cfu), and that gram-positive bacteria of the genera Kocuria and Planococcus secreted up to 4.1 pM ATP/cfu. Variations in the levels of ex...