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Transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy characterization of nickel deposition on bacterial cells

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  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Published:
Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

Recently bacterial cells have become attractive biological templates for the fabrication of metal nanostructures or nanomaterials due to their inherent small size, various standard geometrical shapes and abundant source. In this paper, nickel-coated bacterial cells (gram-negative bacteria of Escherichia coli) were fabricated via electroless chemical plating. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) characterization results reveal evident morphological difference between bacterial cells before and after deposition with nickel. The bare cells with smooth surface presented transverse outspreading effect at mica surface. Great changes took place in surface roughness for those bacterial cells after metallization. A large number of nickel nanoparticles were observed to be equably distributed at bacterial surface after activation and subsequent metallization. Furthermore, ultra thin section analytic results validated the presence and uniformity of thin nickel coating at bacterial surface after metallization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangsu Laboratory for Biomaterials and Devices, National Laboratory of Molecular and Biomolecular Electronics, Department of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, China

    Wang Jing, He ShiYing, Xu LiNa & Gu Ning

Authors
  1. Wang Jing
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  2. He ShiYing
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  3. Xu LiNa
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  4. Gu Ning
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gu Ning.

Additional information

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 60171005, 60371027, 60121101, 20573019 and 90406023) and Open Project Foundation of Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures of Nanjing University

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Wang, J., He, S., Xu, L. et al. Transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy characterization of nickel deposition on bacterial cells. CHINESE SCI BULL 52, 2919–2924 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-007-0390-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-007-0390-y

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