Battling biofilms - understanding how novel genes impact biofilm formation

自然界中的大多数细菌都存在于附着在表面或彼此之间的群落中，称为生物膜。细菌生物膜对健康至关重要，大多数慢性感染都包括生物膜成分。我们还在各种工业过程中使用生物膜。鉴于其重要性，了解生物膜如何形成以及如何进行修饰以开发预防感染或改善生物技术过程的新方法非常重要。我们最近确定了两种重要病原体所需的所有基因，E。大肠杆菌和沙门氏菌随着时间的推移形成生物膜-这确定了广泛的基因，包括一些以前不知道的在生物膜形成中起作用的基因。这包括MaoP，一种已知在染色体分离但不形成生物膜中起作用的蛋白质。MaoP的缺失导致两种物种中生物膜形成的大量减少，其中生物膜基质组分的产生减少。该项目旨在确定MaoP如何使用微生物学，遗传学，生物化学和信息学的混合物影响生物膜形成。然后将探讨如何利用MaoP来改变生物膜的形成。

Most bacteria in nature exist in communities adhered to surfaces or each other known as biofilms. Bacterial biofilms are crucial to health and most chronic infections include a biofilm component. We also use biofilms in various industrial processes. Given their importance it is very important to understand how biofilms form and can be modified to develop new ways to prevent infections or improve biotechnological processes. We recently identified all the genes needed by two important pathogens, E. coli and Salmonella to form biofilms over time - this identified a wide range of genes including some not previously known to have a role in biofilm formation. This included MaoP, a protein known to have a role in chromosome segregation but not biofilm formation. Deletion of MaoP results in a large reduction in biofilm formation in both species studied with reduced production of biofilm matrix components. This project aims to identify how MaoP affects biofilm formation using a mixture of microbiology, genetics, biochemistry and informatics. It will then explore how MaoP could be exploited to modify biofilm formation.