Discovery and application of the Yoshida effect: nano-sized acicular materials enable penetration of bacterial cells by sliding friction force.

Bacterial genetic properties can be readily altered by a range of techniques, for example, when a mixture of recipient bacteria, donor genes, and nano-sized acicular material are stimulated by sliding friction on surface of the hydrogel such as agarose or gellan gum. In this particular case, a phenomenon called the Yoshida effect is responsible. Specially designed apparatus has been developed to investigate this effect in an effort to identify technical applications, such as the quantitative detection of asbestos. Current patents related to plasmid transformation methods for prokaryotes and quantitative detection of environmental asbestos are also presented.