Safety in numbers: Bacterial aggregation and adaptation to oxidative stress

该项目是一项新的合作，将两名分子微生物学家联系在一起，他们具有互补的技能，可以对支持细菌聚集和生物膜形成的分子过程产生新的见解。生物膜在医学、工业和环境环境中具有巨大的意义，因此从该项目中获得的基本信息将与微生物学领域具有更广泛的相关性。这一建议的结果将是关于表面粘附素生产的基础知识，这将成为未来合理治疗疾病的基础。防止聚集和生物膜的形成将使细菌种群对常规抗生素治疗更敏感。

This project is a new collaboration which links two molecular microbiologists with the complementary skills required to make new insights into the molecular processes that underpin bacterial aggregation and biofilm formation. Biofilms are of immense significance in medical, industrial and environmental settings and so the fundamental information gained from this project will have wider relevance to the field of microbiology. An outcome of this proposal will be fundamental knowledge about the production of surface adhesins that will form the basis for rational treatment of disease in the future. Prevention of aggregation and biofilm formation would make bacterial populations more susceptible to conventional antibiotic treatment.