TY - JOUR
T1 - Hydration solids
AU - Harrellson, Steven G.
AU - DeLay, Michael S.
AU - Chen, Xi
AU - Cavusoglu, Ahmet Hamdi
AU - Dworkin, Jonathan
AU - Stone, Howard A.
AU - Sahin, Ozgur
N1 - Funding Information:
We acknowledge A. Driks (Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Loyola University Chicago, Maywood, IL, USA) who passed away before the completion of the work for contributing spores, and for discussions that informed the hygroelastic theory and for suggesting the use of known sieving properties of spores as an estimate of pore size. Funding was provided by US Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Research Program, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES), under award no. DE-SC0007999 (Fig. and experimental data in Figs. and ); by the Office of Naval Research, under award nos. N00014-19-1-2200 (Fig. and theoretical analyses in Figs. and ) and N00014-21-1-4004 (theoretical analyses in Figs. and ); by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, under award nos. R35GM141953 (to J.D.) and R35GM145382 (to O.S.); and by the David and Lucile Packard Fellows Program. We acknowledge the use of facilities and instrumentation supported by NSF through the Columbia University, Columbia Nano Initiative, and the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center DMR-2011738.
Funding Information:
We acknowledge A. Driks (Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Loyola University Chicago, Maywood, IL, USA) who passed away before the completion of the work for contributing spores, and for discussions that informed the hygroelastic theory and for suggesting the use of known sieving properties of spores as an estimate of pore size. Funding was provided by US Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Research Program, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES), under award no. DE-SC0007999 (Fig. 1 and experimental data in Figs. 3 and 4); by the Office of Naval Research, under award nos. N00014-19-1-2200 (Fig. 5 and theoretical analyses in Figs. 3 and 4) and N00014-21-1-4004 (theoretical analyses in Figs. 3 and 4); by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, under award nos. R35GM141953 (to J.D.) and R35GM145382 (to O.S.); and by the David and Lucile Packard Fellows Program. We acknowledge the use of facilities and instrumentation supported by NSF through the Columbia University, Columbia Nano Initiative, and the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center DMR-2011738.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2023/7/20
Y1 - 2023/7/20
N2 - Hygroscopic biological matter in plants, fungi and bacteria make up a large fraction of Earth’s biomass1. Although metabolically inert, these water-responsive materials exchange water with the environment and actuate movement2–5 and have inspired technological uses6,7. Despite the variety in chemical composition, hygroscopic biological materials across multiple kingdoms of life exhibit similar mechanical behaviours including changes in size and stiffness with relative humidity8–13. Here we report atomic force microscopy measurements on the hygroscopic spores14,15 of a common soil bacterium and develop a theory that captures the observed equilibrium, non-equilibrium and water-responsive mechanical behaviours, finding that these are controlled by the hydration force16–18. Our theory based on the hydration force explains an extreme slowdown of water transport and successfully predicts a strong nonlinear elasticity and a transition in mechanical properties that differs from glassy and poroelastic behaviours. These results indicate that water not only endows biological matter with fluidity but also can—through the hydration force—control macroscopic properties and give rise to a ‘hydration solid’ with unusual properties. A large fraction of biological matter could belong to this distinct class of solid matter.
AB - Hygroscopic biological matter in plants, fungi and bacteria make up a large fraction of Earth’s biomass1. Although metabolically inert, these water-responsive materials exchange water with the environment and actuate movement2–5 and have inspired technological uses6,7. Despite the variety in chemical composition, hygroscopic biological materials across multiple kingdoms of life exhibit similar mechanical behaviours including changes in size and stiffness with relative humidity8–13. Here we report atomic force microscopy measurements on the hygroscopic spores14,15 of a common soil bacterium and develop a theory that captures the observed equilibrium, non-equilibrium and water-responsive mechanical behaviours, finding that these are controlled by the hydration force16–18. Our theory based on the hydration force explains an extreme slowdown of water transport and successfully predicts a strong nonlinear elasticity and a transition in mechanical properties that differs from glassy and poroelastic behaviours. These results indicate that water not only endows biological matter with fluidity but also can—through the hydration force—control macroscopic properties and give rise to a ‘hydration solid’ with unusual properties. A large fraction of biological matter could belong to this distinct class of solid matter.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41586-023-06144-y
DO - 10.1038/s41586-023-06144-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 37286609
AN - SCOPUS:85161305292
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 619
SP - 500
EP - 505
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 7970
ER -