Photodegradable Hydrogels for Rapid Screening, Isolation, and Genetic Characterization of Bacteria with Rare Phenotypes.

ABSTRACT: Screening mutant libraries (MLs) of bacteria for strains with specific phenotypes is often a slow and laborious process that requires assessment of tens of thousands of individual cell colonies after plating and culturing on solid media. In this report, we develop a three-dimensional, photodegradable hydrogel interface designed to dramatically improve the throughput of ML screening by combining high-density cell culture with precision extraction and the recovery of individual, microscale colonies for follow-up genetic and phenotypic characterization. ML populations are first added to a hydrogel precursor solution consisting of polyethylene glycol (PEG) o-nitrobenzyl diacrylate and PEG-tetrathiol macromers, where they become encapsulated into 13 μm thick hydrogel layers at a density

SUBMITTER: Fattahi N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8906371 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature