The
reason of the discriminative responses may be attributed to a
different interaction and membrane permealizing action (e.g. differential
changes in the lipid layer) between the sAMP and the
dead bacteria, with an already compromised membrane, and
therefore reduced recognition and surface binding ability. Additionally,
SEM images of the sAMP modified gold exposed to dead
bacteria show the presence of a significantly lower number of bacteria onto the gold surface, compared to that exposed to livebacteria under identical exposure conditions (Fig. S2 in SI).