Developing permeable polydimethylsiloxane-based biomimetic leaf surfaces to study phyllosphere microbial ecology

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is an excellent material for the construction of biomimetic leaf replicas which reproduce leaf surfaces with high fidelity. This allows for the study of leaf surface-colonizing bacteria and the impact of the leaf topology on bacterial distributions and behavior. However, their application is limited to short-term experiments, as long term survival of microorganisms on their surface is not possible due to a lack of nutrient replenishment. On living leaves, nutrients diffuse across the cuticle via leaching, a process not yet replicated in biomimetic systems. Here, we explore whether water and fructose can be supplied to microbial colonizers on PDMS membranes by mimicking leaching. We created hybrid membranes by incorporating polymers (Carbopol, Pemulen, cellulose microfibers, cellulose nanocrystals, and polyvinylpyrrolidone) to enhance nutrient transport. We determined that bulk diffusion of water correlated negatively with membrane thickness and positively with polymer concentration. Further, fructose diffusion across hybrid membranes reached similar rates compared to isolated Populus × canescens leaf cuticles.

Under high relative humidity, these membranes supported long-term bacterial survival. Our findings represent important steps towards the development of topomimetic leaf surfaces that sustain microbial life, enabling further investigation into the microbe-microbe interactions that take place on leaves.