A team of researchers in Singapore has developed a technique for bioengineering a bacterium to seek out and kill targeted pathogens. In their paper published in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology, the team describes the te ...

A new transparent, bioinspired coating makes ordinary glass tough, self-cleaning and incredibly slippery, a team from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Harvard ...

(Phys.org) —Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute have succeeded in sequencing the genome of a mysterious type of bacteria known only by its status—candidate phylum TM6. The sample sequenced, the ...

A clever new imaging technique discovered at the University of California, Berkeley, reveals a possible plan of attack for many bacterial diseases, such as cholera, lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients ...

New research suggests that some patients develop a potentially deadly blood infection from their implanted cardiac devices because bacterial cells in their bodies have gene mutations that allow them to stick ...

By rethinking what happens on the surface of things, engineers at Harvard University have discovered that Bacillus subtilis biofilm colonies exhibit an unmatched ability to repel a wide range of liquids -- and ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- New studies of 80 Bradshaw rock art works in the Kimberley region of Western Australia have shown their colors have not faded because the artworks are coated with a biofilm of bacteria and ...

This is the tale of two biological substances—cells from mammals and bacteria. It's a story about the havoc these microscopic entities can wreak on all manner of surfaces, from mighty ships to teeth and medical devices, ...

More than 80 percent of microbial infections in the human body are caused by a build-up of bacteria, according to the National Institutes of Health. Bacteria cells gain a foothold in the body by accumulating ...

A bacterium has been used to wish people a Merry Xmas. Grown by Dr Munehiro Asally, an Assistant Professor at the University of Warwick, the letters used to spell MERRY XMAS are made of Bacillus subtilis, ...

Researchers from Johns Hopkins have found that dense mats of interacting bacteria, called biofilms, were present in the majority of cancers and polyps, particularly those on the right side of the colon. The ...

For most people biofilms conjure up images of slippery stones in a streambed and dirty drains. While there are plenty of "bad" biofilms around – they even cause pesky dental plaque and a host of other more ...

Biofilm

A biofilm is an aggregate of microorganisms in which cells adhere to each other on a surface. These adherent cells are frequently embedded within a self-produced matrix of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS). Biofilm EPS, which is also referred to as slime (although not everything described as slime is a biofilm), is a polymeric conglomeration generally composed of extracellular DNA, proteins, and polysaccharides. Biofilms may form on living or non-living surfaces and can be prevalent in natural, industrial and hospital settings. The microbial cells growing in a biofilm are physiologically distinct from planktonic cells of the same organism, which, by contrast, are single-cells that may float or swim in a liquid medium.

Microbes form a biofilm in response to many factors, which may include cellular recognition of specific or non-specific attachment sites on a surface, nutritional cues, or in some cases, by exposure of planktonic cells to sub-inhibitory concentrations of antibiotics. When a cell switches to the biofilm mode of growth, it undergoes a phenotypic shift in behavior in which large suites of genes are differentially regulated.