Characterisation of autolytic programmed cell death in Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms

细菌大多生活在被称为生物膜的群落中，这些生物膜附着在表面，并被一种粘性粘液粘在一起，以保护细菌免受抗生素和消毒剂的伤害。生物膜粘液通常含有大量DNA和其他来自死亡细菌的细胞碎片。事实上，一些细菌会通过爆炸自杀，产生粘性粘液，使生物膜群落的其他成员受益。然而，这些自杀途径也增加了细菌对抗生素的敏感性，抗生素会导致细胞启动自杀系统。重要的是，我们要了解细菌是如何控制它们的程序性自杀系统的，这样我们才能开发出更好的方法来抑制生物膜，并开发利用细菌自杀途径的有效抗生素治疗方法。这个项目将探索重要的细菌病原体铜绿假单胞菌的程序性自杀系统，它是医院获得性感染的主要原因，也是我们最大的威胁之一，因为高水平的抗生素耐药性。

Bacteria mostly live in communities called biofilms that are stuck to surfaces and held together by a sticky slime that protects the bacteria from antibiotics and disinfectants. Biofilm slime often contains lots of DNA and other cellular debris that came from dead bacteria. In fact, some bacteria will suicide by exploding to produce the sticky slime that benefits the other members of the biofilm community. However, these suicide pathways also increase the sensitivity of bacteria to antibiotics that cause cells to turn on the suicide systems. It is important that we understand how bacteria control their programmed suicide systems so that we can develop better ways to inhibit biofilms and to develop effective antibiotic treatments that exploit bacterial suicide pathways. This project will explore programmed suicide systems of the important bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa that is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections and is one of our greatest threats due to high levels of antibiotic resistance.