The contribution of cell-cell signaling and motility to bacterial biofilm formation
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Biofilms are an attached growth state of bacteria Relevance of biofilms Biofilms are surface-associated communities of bacteria encased in an extracellular matrix. Biofilms are encountered in almost every imaginable environment. It has been estimated that many bacteria in the environment adopt the biofilm lifestyle (opposed to the free-swimming or planktonic life style). Geesey et al.1 demonstrated that in the water column of streams in Montana, most bacteria were found associated with surfaces. In industry, biofilms cause many problems, including fouling of ship hulls, promoting corrosion in pipes, and contaminating food processing equipment. They can also be beneficial in industry. For example, they are a key feature of wastewater treatment plants. In the clinic, it has been estimated that biofilms cause up to 60% of all bacterial infections in developed countries. There are several reasons why the biofilm lifestyle is advantageous. One of the primary reasons is that biofilms provide protection from a range of stressors, from antibiotics to host immune response and protozoan grazing. They can also facilitate acquisition of nutrients in cases where the surface is a nutrient source (e.g., a chicken in a poultry processing plant).
Biofilms also promote genetic exchange, providing a high local cell density and a stable structured environment for genetic exchange events, such as conjugation and transformation.2 Because of their widespread importance, there has been an explosion of biofilm-related research in the past 10 years. Scientists and engineers have been probing the molecular mechanisms underpinning biofilm formation and antimicrobial tolerance, while engineers and material scientists have struggled to design surfaces that prevent microbial attachment. This work has usually centered on a few key species for which we know the most about biofilm formation. Recent research has revealed that biofilm development can be at the confluence of many other types of social behavior for bacteria. One such bacterial species for which this is the case is the Gram-negative bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa: A model organism for studying sociomicrobiology P. aeruginosa is an environmentally ubiquitous bacterium that routinely grows attached to surfaces (e.g., water pipes, or soil and sand particles) as a biofilm.3 It is also a metabolically versatile organism, able to use a variety of compounds as sole carbon
Joshua D. Shrout, University of Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA; [email protected] Tim Tolker-Nielsen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark; [email protected] Michael Givskov, University of Copenhagen, Denmark; [email protected] Matthew R. Parsek, University of Washington, Seattle 98195, USA; [email protected] DOI: 10.1557/mrs.2011.67
© 2011 Materials Research Society
MRS BULLETIN • VOLUME 36 • MAY 2011 • www.mrs.org/bulletin
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THE CONTRIBUTION OF CELL-CELL SIGNALING AND MOTILITY TO BACTERIAL BIOFILM FORMATION
and energy sources. Its genome is rather large (6.3 million base pairs Mb),4 probably attesting t
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