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Microfluidic Approaches to Bacterial Biofilm Formation

Bacterial biofilms—aggregations of bacterial cells and extracellular polymeric substrates (EPS)—are an important subject of research in the fields of biology and medical science. Under aquatic conditions, bacterial cells form biofilms as a mechanism for improving survival and dispersion. In this rev...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Kim, Junghyun, Park, Hee-Deung, Chung, Seok
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6268732/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22895027
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules17089818
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author Kim, Junghyun
Park, Hee-Deung
Chung, Seok
author_facet Kim, Junghyun
Park, Hee-Deung
Chung, Seok
author_sort Kim, Junghyun
collection PubMed
description Bacterial biofilms—aggregations of bacterial cells and extracellular polymeric substrates (EPS)—are an important subject of research in the fields of biology and medical science. Under aquatic conditions, bacterial cells form biofilms as a mechanism for improving survival and dispersion. In this review, we discuss bacterial biofilm development as a structurally and dynamically complex biological system and propose microfluidic approaches for the study of bacterial biofilms. Biofilms develop through a series of steps as bacteria interact with their environment. Gene expression and environmental conditions, including surface properties, hydrodynamic conditions, quorum sensing signals, and the characteristics of the medium, can have positive or negative influences on bacterial biofilm formation. The influences of each factor and the combined effects of multiple factors may be addressed using microfluidic approaches, which provide a promising means for controlling the hydrodynamic conditions, establishing stable chemical gradients, performing measurement in a high-throughput manner, providing real-time monitoring, and providing in vivo-like in vitro culture devices. An increased understanding of biofilms derived from microfluidic approaches may be relevant to improving our understanding of the contributions of determinants to bacterial biofilm development.
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spelling pubmed-62687322018-12-12 Microfluidic Approaches to Bacterial Biofilm Formation Kim, Junghyun Park, Hee-Deung Chung, Seok Molecules Review Bacterial biofilms—aggregations of bacterial cells and extracellular polymeric substrates (EPS)—are an important subject of research in the fields of biology and medical science. Under aquatic conditions, bacterial cells form biofilms as a mechanism for improving survival and dispersion. In this review, we discuss bacterial biofilm development as a structurally and dynamically complex biological system and propose microfluidic approaches for the study of bacterial biofilms. Biofilms develop through a series of steps as bacteria interact with their environment. Gene expression and environmental conditions, including surface properties, hydrodynamic conditions, quorum sensing signals, and the characteristics of the medium, can have positive or negative influences on bacterial biofilm formation. The influences of each factor and the combined effects of multiple factors may be addressed using microfluidic approaches, which provide a promising means for controlling the hydrodynamic conditions, establishing stable chemical gradients, performing measurement in a high-throughput manner, providing real-time monitoring, and providing in vivo-like in vitro culture devices. An increased understanding of biofilms derived from microfluidic approaches may be relevant to improving our understanding of the contributions of determinants to bacterial biofilm development. MDPI 2012-08-15 /pmc/articles/PMC6268732/ /pubmed/22895027 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules17089818 Text en © 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Kim, Junghyun
Park, Hee-Deung
Chung, Seok
Microfluidic Approaches to Bacterial Biofilm Formation
title Microfluidic Approaches to Bacterial Biofilm Formation
title_full Microfluidic Approaches to Bacterial Biofilm Formation
title_fullStr Microfluidic Approaches to Bacterial Biofilm Formation
title_full_unstemmed Microfluidic Approaches to Bacterial Biofilm Formation
title_short Microfluidic Approaches to Bacterial Biofilm Formation
title_sort microfluidic approaches to bacterial biofilm formation
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6268732/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22895027
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules17089818
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