Biofilm interruption of some pathogens such as psuedomonas aeruginosa

[deleted-596630]

why dont we synthesize quorum sensing compounds to trigger the dispersal phase of a biofilm of, for example, psuedomonas?

[SciB]

Hello and welcome to Scibuddies.

Exploiting quorum sensing might be a good strategy for discovering new antimicrobial compounds, especially ones that interrupt biofilm formation.

What is the project that you have in mind? What is your hypothesis? What organisms are you thinking of using?

Provide some more details on your project and I will be able to help steer you in the right direction.

Sybee

[deleted-596630]

Oh sorry,

I was thinking of how to combat cystic fibrosis from psuedomonas aerugenosa infections. These can be problematic because they develop a shield like structure to antibiotics (biofilm). There are five stages to biofilm, the last is dispersal which some are thinking that can be activated by quorum sensing. So given this I'm wondering to make the infection sites susceptible to antibiotics, why not trigger biofilm dispersal by identifying the compound that is used for quorum sensing of dispersal,

Thanks

[SciB]

Hi,

Great question! I have had course in microbiology but am not expert in biofilms. Dispersing a film through triggering the quorum sensing system could be done, but my question would be then what happens to the bacteria that were in the film? I would think that they are still alive and able to recolonize another surface and maybe make a new film. Is that how you understand it?

If you can give me some more information and maybe a link to one of your references I can help you better. Biofilms are a hot area of research now and I need to learn more about them.

By the way, do you have access to a microbiology lab to do experiments in? If not then you are going to be very restricted in what you can do with bacteria.

Best wishes,

Sybee