Laboratory of Biological Electron Microscopy, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Anton Malovichko
Laboratory of Biological Electron Microscopy, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Maria Ines Villalba
Laboratory of Biological Electron Microscopy, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
María Elena Vela
Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquímicas Teóricas y Aplicadas (INIFTA), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, and CONICET, Diagonal 113 y 64, 1900 La Plata, Argentina
Osvaldo Yantorno
Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Fermentaciones Industriales (CINDEFI-CONICET-CCT La Plata), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, 1900 La Plata, Argentina
Ronnie G. Willaert
International Joint Research Group VUB-EPFL NanoBiotechnology and NanoMedicine (NANO), Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
Rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) could play a major role in fighting multidrug-resistant bacteria. Recently, it was discovered that all living organisms oscillate in the range of nanometers and that these oscillations, referred to as nanomotion, stop as soon the organism dies. This finding led to the development of rapid AST techniques based on the monitoring of these oscillations upon exposure to antibiotics. In this review, we explain the working principle of this novel technique, compare the method with current ASTs, explore its application and give some advice about its implementation. As an illustrative example, we present the application of the technique to the slowly growing and pathogenic Bordetella pertussis bacteria.
