Novel Approaches for Inhibiting Bacterial Biofilm Formation

细菌在环境和体内的表面上以密集的群落生长。细菌被包裹在细胞外粘液层（或基质）中，提供保护并支持长期生存。不幸的是，一些细菌生物膜会对石油管道和浸没在水中的表面造成腐蚀和损坏。生物膜也是细菌感染的主要原因，因为它们抵抗抗生素治疗和免疫系统的能力增加。需要新的策略来预防或减少生物膜形成，以减少工业损害和治疗生物膜感染。减少生物膜的一种方法是靶向破坏构成细胞外基质的聚合物。铜绿假单胞菌被用作我们的模式生物，因为它在环境中无处不在，并形成强大的生物膜。我们已经确定了在生物膜中特异性开启的基因，这些基因有助于建立生物膜，抵抗抗生素治疗和逃避免疫反应。这里建议筛选新的抗生素，降低产生这些因子的能力，这些因子是建立生物膜所必需的。我们还建议研究杀死细菌的病毒，目的是设计更好地杀死生物膜的病毒。由于广泛的抗生素耐药性问题日益严重，需要新的方法来解决由生物膜引起的这些工业和医疗问题。

Bacteria grow in dense communities on surfaces in the environment and in the body. The bacteria are encased in an extracellular slime layer (or matrix) that provides protection and supports long-term survival. Unfortunately, some bacterial biofilms cause corrosion and damage to oil pipelines and surfaces submerged in water. Biofilms are also a major cause of bacterial infections, due to their increased ability to resist antibiotic treatment and the immune system. New strategies are needed to prevent or reduce biofilm formation, in order to reduce industrial damage and treat biofilm infections. One approach to reduce biofilms is to target the destruction of the polymers that make up the extracellular matrix. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is used as our model organism, because it is ubiquitous in the environment, and forms robust biofilms. We have identified the genes that are specifically turned on in biofilms, which contribute to building a biofilm, to resisting antibiotic treatment and to evading the immune response. It is proposed here to screen for novel antibiotics that reduce the ability to produce these factors that are essential to build a biofilm. We also propose to study the viruses that kill bacteria, with the intention to engineer viruses that are better equipped to kill biofilms. Due to the increasing problem of widespread antibiotic resistance, novel approaches are need to combat these industrial and medical problems caused by biofilms.