Motion is a key characteristic of every form of life¹. Even at the microscale, it has been reported that colonies of bacteria can generate nanomotion on mechanical cantilevers², but the origin of these nanoscale vibrations has remained unresolved^3,4. Here, we present a new technique using drums made of ultrathin bilayer graphene, where the nanomotion of single bacteria can be measured in its aqueous growth environment. A single Escherichia coli cell is found to generate random oscillations with amplitudes of up to 60 nm, exerting forces of up to 6 nN to its environment. Using mutant strains that differ by single gene deletions that affect motility, we are able to pinpoint the bacterial flagella as the main source of nanomotion. By real-time tracing of changes in nanomotion on administering antibiotics, we demonstrate that graphene drums can perform antibiotic susceptibility testing with single-cell sensitivity. These findings deepen our understanding of processes underlying cellular dynamics, and pave the way towards high-throughput and parallelized rapid screening of the effectiveness of antibiotics in bacterial infections with graphene devices.

运动是每一种生命形式的关键特征¹。据报道，即使在微观尺度上，细菌菌落也可以在机械悬臂梁上产生纳米运动²，但这些纳米级振动的起源仍未得到解决^3,4。在这里，我们提出了一种使用由超薄双层石墨烯制成的鼓的新技术，可以在其水性生长环境中测量单个细菌的纳米运动。单个大肠杆菌发现细胞产生振幅高达 60 nm 的随机振荡，对其环境施加高达 6 nN 的力。使用因影响运动的单基因缺失而不同的突变菌株，我们能够将细菌鞭毛确定为纳米运动的主要来源。通过实时追踪纳米运动在施用抗生素时的变化，我们证明石墨烯鼓可以以单细胞敏感性进行抗生素敏感性测试。这些发现加深了我们对细胞动力学过程的理解，并为高通量和平行快速筛选抗生素在石墨烯设备细菌感染中的有效性铺平了道路。