Biofilm architectural breakdown in response to antibiotics facilitates community invasion

Graduate Students Mini-Symposium

  • Date: Jul 23, 2018
  • Time: 01:50 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Francisco Diaz Pascual
  • MPI Marburg, MPRG Drescher
  • Location: MPI for Terrestrial Microbiology
  • Room: Lecture hall
  • Host: IMPRS
  • Contact: imprs@mpi-marburg.mpg.de

Biofilms often encounter environment changes that lead to stress. It is still unclear how do they respond to these changes from an architectural point of view. Here we show how Vibrio cholerae biofilms respond to antibiotic stress. We found that translational inhibition causes an increase in cell volume and a decrease in cell density. They lead to a breakdown of the cell-matrix interactions due to changes in the matrix protein RbmA. This creates gaps in the biofilms that can be used by invader cells to colonize the biofilm with important consequences for the study of antibiotics and their ecological impact.

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