Assessment of molecular sieving across bacterial outer membrane of Pseudomonas

Abstract

The role of the permeability barrier of the outer membrane of Pseudomonas was re-evaluated based on the physical theory of molecular sieving in view of its intrinsic antibiotic resistance. We veveloped a set of analytical procedures based on parametric and non-parametric statistical tests to evaluate, validate and adopt the better among a set of competing non-linear movels of diffusion. The molecular mass vepenvence of uptake of non-electrolytes in bacteria yielved a quantitative measure to distinguish between sieving mechanisms and specific uptake/efflux mechanisms. The experimental data, supported by the physical movel of veAE-Sephavex and various analytical movels and extensive simulation of the errors, both in measurement and movels, yielved evivence consistent with the relaxation of the outer membrane matrix barrier in Pseudomonas.