The way bacteria interact with surfaces have widespread implications on human health, industrial processes, and the environment. One of the consequences of such interactions are organized colonies of bacteria called as biofilms, which exhibit emergent properties and are extremely pervasive, recalcitrant, and pose a huge economic burden on healthcare and industry. Several small molecular strategies targeting specific processes in bacteria have been developed to remove existing biofilms from surfaces, but biofilms have shown to be inherently tolerant to chemical and environmental stresses. Herein we discuss tuning polymer functionality to manipulate bacteria-surface interactions like surface attachment and motility, which lead to inhibition of biofilm formation in an opportunistic pathogen, <i>P. aeruginosa.</i> We describe the design of polymers that disrupt surface-established biofilms of <i>P. aeruginosa,</i> while being non-toxic to both bacterial and mammalian cells at their active concentrations. Our results show that synthetic macromolecules can be designed to control bacterial behaviors with the potential to develop novel antibiofilm strategies.

Macromolecular control of bacterial behavior on surfaces

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.