Abstract
A method has been developed to rapidly screen large numbers of bacterial mutants and identify those with altered adhesion to polystyrene surfaces. The wells in 96-well polystyrene microtiter plates were used as the attachment surfaces; both tissue culture-treated and nontreated polystyrene plates were used to allow comparison of adhesion ability to surfaces with different water-wettabilities. Numbers of attached bacteria were measured by staining them with Congo Red, eluting the stain with ethanol, and measuring the absorbance of the eluted stain in the wells with a microtiter plate reader. Assays with
Pseudomonas fluoresences strain H2 and two spontaneous mutants with altered adhesion ability demonstrated the reproducibility of the technique, and assays on a series of mutants obtained by transposon mutagenesis demonstrated the ability of the method to allow identification of strains with altered adhesion abilities.