Toward single-molecule DNA uptake by Haemophilus influenzae

Haemophilus influenzae is a Gram-negative, non-motile bacterium found in the respiratory tract of higher organisms which is naturally competent; that is, it naturally has the ability to internalise exogenous DNA. The DNA uptake machinery spans two membranes and has been shown to require an asymmetric nine basepair uptake signaling sequence to initiate DNA uptake, but the mechanism is still poorly understood. This thesis presents work toward single molecule DNA uptake experiments involving optical tweezers, including optical tweezer construction and characterization, DNA force-extension relations, plasmid design for single molecule uptake experiments, and efforts to immobilise H. influenzae cells to surfaces of polystyrene beads.