Study for biofilm formed by Streptococcus pneumoniae and the treatment strategy

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There is still limited information about biofilm formed by Streptococcus pneumoniae, as well as the treatment of biofilm diseases is also controversial. To evaluate the characteristics of S. pneumoniae biofilm, we conducted the following study. A new system was designed to investigate the formation of S. pneumoniae biofilm, which includes newly defined biofilm culture condition, biofilm microtiter assay, and the utilities of con focal laser scanning microscopy(CLSM) and scanning electron microscope(SEM). We detected the varieties of S. pneumoniae biofilm existed in the strains with different serotypes and antimicrobial susceptibilities. We also investigated the in vitro expression of genes relevant to antimicrobial resistance, pathogenicity and adherence in the planktonic or biofilm condition, with or without antibiotic treatment(meropenem) for TIGR4 strain. As a result, the higher expression of genes relevant to antimicrobial resistance and pathogenicity was detected in the biofilm condition after meropenem treated. In this study, we designed a new biofilm observation system, and our data indicated that S. pneumoniae is capable to produce biofilm, and many factors such as serotypes, and antimicrobial susceptibilities especially when S. pneumonia is under antibiotics treatment may affect the biofilm formation. All these findings are supposed to be a part of new evidences to establish an effective biofilm diseases treatment strategy.