Weibull analyses of bacterial interaction forces measured using AFM
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Updated: Jun 13, 2026

Investigating Receptor-ligand Systems of the Cellulosome with AFM-based Single-molecule Force Spectroscopy
Published on: December 20, 2013
Henny C van der Mei1, Joop de Vries, Henk J Busscher
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, University Medical Center Groningen and University of Groningen, Antonius Deusinglaan 1, 9713 AV Groningen, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
Statistically significant conclusions from interaction forces obtained by AFM are difficult to draw because of large data spreads. Weibull analysis, common in macroscopic bond-strength analyses, takes advantage of this spread to derive a Weibull distribution, yielding the probability of occurrence of a force value and the dependability of the data set. Here we propose Weibull distribution as a new way to present nanoscopic bacterial interaction forces obtained using AFM.

