Insight on microbial biofilms and recent antibiofilm approaches

Abstract

Biofilms are organized sessile microbial communities embedded in a self-secreted extracellular matrix. These cells exhibit modified morphological, physiological and metabolic characteristics. Biofilms represent a survival strategy that confers protection against wide range of adverse environmental conditions (UV, antimicrobial, host immune system). The persistence of these microbial communities on different biotic and abiotic surfaces represents a real problem for both food and medical sectors. Their formation on food processing surfaces and biomedical devices is responsible for almost 80% of microbial infections. In addition to the health problems, the economic burden caused biofilms is enormous which necessitates the development of biofilm prevention or elimination strategies. Conventional approaches based on physical, mechanical and chemical interventions are not efficient anymore due to increased resistance of biofilm organisms. Biofilm cells exhibit higher resistance to antimicrobial agents by 100- 1000 folds when compared to their planktonic counterparts. Such findings prove the seriousness of the threat imposed by these communities and emphasize the urgent need to come up with new antibiofilm approaches.

The increased interest in biofilm research has provided deeper knowledge concerning these communities, which led to impressive progress in developing novel antibiofilm tools. The bulk of these emerging strategies focuses on green technology or development new molecules that can be used as adjuvants in combination with antimicrobial agents. On the other hand, some approaches aim to inhibit adhesion via targeting microbial surface proteins such as adhesins, or through engineering antiadhesive surfaces through chemical or mechanical modifications.