Emerging advances in optical-based analysis of bacterial motility

At the microscale, bacteria have developed numerous motility mechanisms, as this process allows movement towards nutrients and more habitable habitats. The research on bacterial motility is valuable for many applications, such as biological entity/surface interactions investigation, microbial cell captures and detection, as well as analysis of flagellar motion mechanisms. The burgeoning interest in the study of bacterial motility has contributed to the rapid development of several analytical methods. Among these emerging methods, the opticalbased analysis is commonly considered as the most intuitive and robust approach for decrypting the dynamic nature of bacterial motility. Additionally, advances in experimental technologies and data analysis methods are offering new dynamic optical-based analysis capabilities relevant to the motility research. This review is an attempt to provide a brief overview of recent advances in optical-based imaging/analysis techniques for bacterial motility, including dark-field microscope-based analysis, fluorescence microscope-based analysis, surface plasmon resonance microscope-based analysis, phase contrast microscope-based analysis, etc. Finally, the perspectives for the future directions and development are discussed for this special research field.

Automated summary

At the microscale, bacteria have developed various motility mechanisms for movement towards nutrients and habitable habitats. Research on bacterial motility is valuable for applications like investigating interactions between biological entities and surfaces, microbial cell captures and detection, and analyzing flagellar motion mechanisms. Optical-based analysis is considered the most intuitive and robust approach for studying bacterial motility, and advancements in experimental technologies and data analysis methods have expanded the capabilities of optical-based analysis. This review provides an overview of recent advances in optical-based imaging/analysis techniques for bacterial motility, including dark-field microscope-based analysis, fluorescence microscope-based analysis, surface plasmon resonance microscope-based analysis, and phase contrast microscope-based analysis. The review also discusses future directions and development in this research field.