Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 16, 2026

15:28
Engineering Adherent Bacteria by Creating a Single Synthetic Curli Operon
Published on: November 16, 2012
Binding bacteria to highly branched poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) modified with vancomycin induces the coil-to-globule
Joanna Shepherd1, Prodip Sarker, Kathryn Swindells
1School of Clinical Dentistry, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TA, UK.
Journal of the American Chemical Society
|January 27, 2010
Abstract:
Binding of highly branched poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) with vancomycin end groups to Staphylococcus aureus induced a coil-to-globule phase transition. The polymers aggregated this gram-positive bacteria (but not gram-negative bacteria) over a wide range of temperatures, but cooling to 24-26 degrees C progressed the polymer-bound bacteria through a globule-to-coil phase transition, after which the bacteria were released.

