Probing nanomotion of single bacteria with graphene drums

Motion is a key characteristic of every form of life 1 . Even at the microscale, it has been reported that colonies of bacteria can generate nanomotion on mechanical cantilevers 2 , but the origin of these nanoscale vibrations has remained unresolved 3 , 4 . Here, we present a new technique using drums made of ultrathin bilayer graphene, where the nanomotion of single bacteria can be measured in its aqueous growth environment. A single Escherichia coli cell is found to generate random oscillations with amplitudes of up to 60 nm, exerting forces of up to 6 nN to its environment. Using mutant strains that differ by single gene deletions that affect motility, we are able to pinpoint the bacterial flagella as the main source of nanomotion. By real-time tracing of changes in nanomotion on administering antibiotics, we demonstrate that graphene drums can perform antibiotic susceptibility testing with single-cell sensitivity. These findings deepen our understanding of processes underlying cellular dynamics, and pave the way towards high-throughput and parallelized rapid screening of the effectiveness of antibiotics in bacterial infections with graphene devices. Motion is a key characteristic of every form of life. In this work, the authors use graphene drums to probe the nanomotion of a single bacterium and develop a new way for performing antibiotic susceptibility testing with single-cell resolution.