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Ecology of a Simple Synthetic Biofilm

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The Physical Basis of Bacterial Quorum Communication

Part of the book series: Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering ((BIOMEDICAL))

Abstract

The ecology in a biofilm—i.e., how the cells relate to each other and their environment—can offer competitive advantages over an autonomous, free-swimming, planktonic environment such as nutrient acquisition via cross-feeding of populations and increased resistance to biocides. To explore this ecology, we investigated the physical parameters governing prokaryotic cell-to-cell signaling in a simple model of a biofilm created using live-cell lithography, comprising bacteria that are genetically engineered to transmit and receive quorum-sensing signals. These experiments, along with the numerical simulations that mirror them, revealed that gene expression resulting from transmitter to receiver communications was vitally dependent on the location within the biofilm elements and the epigenetic memory associated with a bistable switch in the receiver gene, which were both easily accessible in the model. Three-dimensional biofilm models with open channels that include still more complex communication networks for the study of wound repair are in the offing.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge support from NSF CCF-1129098. We are also grateful to R. Weiss for the donation of receiver plasmids and W-T Liu for sharing his preliminary sequencing data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA

    Edward M. Nelson, Koshala Sarveswaran, Nicolas Perry & Volker Kurz

  2. Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117551, Singapore

    Utkur Mirsaidov

  3. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Winston Timp

  4. Electrical Engineering and Biological Sciences Departments, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA

    Gregory Timp

Authors
  1. Edward M. Nelson
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  2. Utkur Mirsaidov
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  3. Koshala Sarveswaran
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  4. Nicolas Perry
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  5. Volker Kurz
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  7. Gregory Timp
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gregory Timp .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

    Stephen J. Hagen

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Nelson, E.M. et al. (2015). Ecology of a Simple Synthetic Biofilm. In: Hagen, S. (eds) The Physical Basis of Bacterial Quorum Communication. Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1402-9_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1402-9_11

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