Biofilms form when bacteria adhere to an inert surface and form a glue-like coat surrounding the cells. The attached lifestyle slows down the growth rate and alters the bacterial metabolism. Antibiotics can normally fight the planktonic (unattached) bacteria but are often unable to eliminate the biofilm thus resulting in chronic infections1. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that more than 65% of microbial infections are caused by bacterial biofilms2. Pseudomonas aeruginosa a common found opportunistic pathogenic bacterium that can form biofilms that subsequently is responsible for causing chronic cystic fibrosis pneumonia, chronic wound infections and medical implant associated infections. One proposed method for eliminating biofilm growth is to use a biofilm dispersing agent to break part the biofilm enabling the host immune system to eliminate the resulting unattached planktonic bacteria. Caenorhabditis elegans (a soil nematode) was in this study used as the host model for studying biofilm infection since they are inexpensive, easy to culture and there are not any ethical considerations as compared to vertebrate host models3. Another advantage is that C. elegans only possess an innate immune system, ideal for simulating human’s first line of defense against infection. In this study the survival rate of the nematode host was compared in situations with treatment with an array of active biofilm dispersing agents (2B8, SEM 049, SEM 050, RA13) to inactive biofilm dispersing agents (SEM071, SEM046). Preliminary results showed that the agents had no impact on the survival of the C. elegans thus showing that they are candidates for biofilm treatment studies. When the biofilm dispersing agents were added to P. aeruginosa biofilms and allowed to react before being tested in the C. elegans model, results showed similar survival rates for treatment with active agents compared to the inactive agents. It is hypothesized that this was due to the high concentration of bacteria relative to C. elegans. In a subsequent experiments the active agents will be tested on biofilms that subsequently will be fed to C. elegans after exposure to eliminate the effect of continues exposure. Additionally, the effect of the biofilm dispersing agents in combination with antibiotics will be tested to evaluate the effect on the nematode survival rate.

Biofilm dispersing agents reduce the pathogenicity of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm infections in the Caenorhabditis elegans host model

254th National Meeting (2017)

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