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Appl Microbiol Biotechnol (2011) 90:18691881 DOI 10.1007/s00253-011-3293-4
MINI-REVIEW
Biofilmology: a multidisciplinary review of the study of microbial biofilms
Esther Karunakaran & Joy Mukherjee &
Bharathi Ramalingam & Catherine A. Biggs
Received: 24 December 2010 /Revised: 26 March 2011 /Accepted: 27 March 2011 /Published online: 3 May 2011 # Springer-Verlag 2011
Abstract The observation of biofilm formation is not a new phenomenon. The prevalence and significance of biofilm and aggregate formation in various processes have encouraged extensive research in this field for more than 40 years. In this review, we highlight techniques from different disciplines that have been used to successfully describe the extracellular, surface and intracellular elements that are predominant in understanding biofilm formation. To reduce the complexities involved in studying biofilms, researchers in the past have generally taken a parts-based, disciplinary specific approach to understand the different components of biofilms in isolation from one another. Recently, a few studies have looked into combining the different techniques to achieve a more holistic understanding of biofilms, yet this approach is still in its infancy. In order to attain a global understanding of the processes involved in the formation of biofilms and to formulate effective biofilm control strategies, researchers in the next decade should recognise that the study of biofilms, i.e. biofilmology, has evolved into a discipline in its own right and that mutual cooperation between the various disciplines towards a multidisciplinary research vision is vital in this field.
Keywords Biofilms . Biofilmology. Extracellular .
Intracellular . Multidisciplinary. Surface
Introduction
In nature, bacteria can exist as a consortia adherent to each other (aggregates) and/or to surfaces (biofilm) forming
sessile communities able to respond and adapt to changes in the environment or perform highly specialised tasks similar to multi-cellular organisms (Costerton et al. 1999, OToole et al. 2000; Hall-Stoodley and Stoodley 2002). Bacterial biofilms, generally described as cells bound together by extracellular polymeric substances and attached to a surface, involve both cellsurface and cellcell interactions as part of the developmental process (Davey and OToole 2000, OToole et al. 2000). Bacterial aggregation is the phenomenon by which microorganisms interact with each other, forming a steady, multi-cellular cluster (Marshall 1976). Hence, aggregates can also be described as biofilms, where the surface substratum is much less defined (Davey and OToole 2000).