Journal Abstracts/Trade News Category

Journal of Applied Microbiology (August 2011)
Abstract
Aims: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial efficacy of thirteen bismuth thiol preparations for bactericidal activity against established biofilms formed by two bacteria isolated from human chronic wounds.
Methods: Single species biofilms of a Pseudomonas aeruginosa or a methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus were grown in either colony biofilm or drip-flow reactors systems. Biofilms were challenged with bismuth thiols, antibiotics or silver sulfadiazine, and log reductions were determined by plating for colony formation.
Conclusions: Antibiotics were ineffective or inconsistent against biofilms of both bacterial [...]

Bubonic plague, one of history’s deadliest infections, is transmitted by fleas infected with Yersinia pestis. The bacteria can starve fleas by blocking their digestive tracts, which stimulates the insects to bite repeatedly and thereby infect new hosts. Direct examination of infected fleas, aided by in vitro studies and experiments with the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, have established that Y. pestis forms a biofilm in the insect. The extracellular matrix of the biofilm seems to contain a homopolymer of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine, which is a constituent of many bacterial biofilms. A regulatory mechanism involved in [...]

Successful treatment of human tuberculosis requires 6–9 months’ therapy with multiple antibiotics. Incomplete clearance of tubercle bacilli frequently results in disease relapse, presumably as a result of reactivation of persistent drug-tolerant Mycobacterium tuberculosis cells, although the nature and location of these persisters are not known. In other pathogens, antibiotic tolerance is often associated with the formation of biofilms – organized communities of surface-attached cells – but physiologically and genetically defined M. tuberculosis biofilms have not been described. Here, we show that M. tuberculosis forms biofilms with specific environmental and genetic requirements [...]

The hospital environment is particularly susceptible to contamination by bacterial pathogens that grow on surfaces in biofilms. The effects of hospital biocides on two nosocomial pathogens, meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, growing as free-floating (planktonic) and adherent biofilm populations (sessile) were examined. Clinical isolates of MRSA and P. aeruginosa were grown as biofilms on discs of materials found in the hospital environment (stainless steel, glass, polyethylene and Teflon) and treated with three commonly used hospital biocides containing benzalkonium chloride (1 % w/v), chlorhexidine gluconate (4 % w/v) and triclosan [...]

Chronic wounds including diabetic foot ulcers, pressure ulcers, and venous leg ulcers are a worldwide health problem. It has been speculated that bacteria colonizing chronic wounds exist as highly persistent biofilm communities. This research examined chronic and acute wounds for biofilms and characterized microorganisms inhabiting these wounds. Chronic wound specimens were obtained from 77 subjects and acute wound specimens were obtained from 16 subjects. Culture data were collected using standard clinical techniques. Light and scanning electron microscopy techniques were used to analyze 50 of the chronic wound specimens and the 16 [...]

Bacteria that adhere to implanted medical devices or damaged tissue can encase themselves in a hydrated matrix of polysaccharide and protein, and form a slimy layer known as a biofilm. Antibiotic resistance of bacteria in the biofilm mode of growth contributes to the chronicity of infections such as those associated with implanted medical devices. The mechanisms of resistance in biofilms are different from the now familiar plasmids, transposons, and mutations that confer innate resistance to individual bacterial cells. In biofilms, resistance seems to depend on multicellular strategies. We summarize the features [...]

For more than two decades, Biotechnology and Bioengineering has documented research focused on natural and engineered microbial biofilms within aquatic and subterranean ecosystems, wastewater and waste-gas treatment systems, marine vessels and structures, and industrial bioprocesses. Compared to suspended culture systems, intentionally engineered biofilms are heterogeneous reaction systems that can increase reactor productivity, system stability, and provide inherent cell:product separation. Unwanted biofilms can create enormous increases in fluid frictional resistances, unacceptable reductions in heat transfer efficiency, product contamination, enhanced material deterioration, and accelerated corrosion. Missing from B&B has been an equivalent research [...]