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Russell B, Rogers A, Yoder R, Kurilich M, Krishnamurthi VR, Chen J, Wang Y. Silver Ions Inhibit Bacterial Movement and Stall Flagellar Motor. Int J Mol Sci 2023; 24:11704. [PMID: 37511461 PMCID: PMC10381017 DOI: 10.3390/ijms241411704] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2023] [Revised: 07/13/2023] [Accepted: 07/18/2023] [Indexed: 07/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Silver (Ag) in different forms has been gaining broad attention due to its antimicrobial activities and the increasing resistance of bacteria to commonly prescribed antibiotics. However, various aspects of the antimicrobial mechanism of Ag have not been understood, including how Ag affects bacterial motility, a factor intimately related to bacterial virulence. Here, we report our study on how Ag+ ions affect the motility of E. coli bacteria using swimming, tethering, and rotation assays. We observed that the bacteria slowed down dramatically by >70% when subjected to Ag+ ions, providing direct evidence that Ag+ ions inhibit the motility of bacteria. In addition, through tethering and rotation assays, we monitored the rotation of flagellar motors and observed that the tumbling/pausing frequency of bacteria increased significantly by 77% in the presence of Ag+ ions. Furthermore, we analyzed the results from the tethering assay using the hidden Markov model (HMM) and found that Ag+ ions decreased bacterial tumbling/pausing-to-running transition rate significantly by 75%. The results suggest that the rotation of bacterial flagellar motors was stalled by Ag+ ions. This work provided a new quantitative understanding of the mechanism of Ag-based antimicrobial agents in bacterial motility.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benjamin Russell
- Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
| | - Ariel Rogers
- Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
| | - Ryan Yoder
- Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
| | - Matthew Kurilich
- Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
| | | | - Jingyi Chen
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
- Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
| | - Yong Wang
- Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
- Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
- Cell and Molecular Biology Program, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA
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