Understanding Material Interactions and Effects on Polymicrobial Communities at Surfaces

这个多学科项目不仅将利用体外模型和环境来源的“现实生活”生物膜来评估生物膜形成的预防，而且还将评估这些活性物质对群落结构（元分类分析）、基因表达（转录组分析）和由此产生的代谢物（例如通过电子鼻技术和/或毒性与气味有关的代谢物）的影响。成像和高通量技术也将被采用。本项目的主要目标是：1。在表面/土壤-细胞水平和细胞-细胞水平上对微生物相互作用（细菌和真菌）产生基本的见解2。对单个抗菌活性如何作用于单一种类微生物的机理有更深入的了解；生物利用度和对生物膜的渗透。利用高通量能力来识别协同组合，从而在增强抗复杂微生物群落的抗菌性能方面实现阶段性变化4。在最初的生物膜形成和随后的发展过程中，对多种活性物质和材料如何影响表面上复杂的微生物群落产生基本的、机械的理解。我们预计这些见解将转移到其他表面，与联合利华（BPC；潜在的自我保护产品）和非联合利华应用（例如医疗设备；工业清洁）相关。

The multi-disciplinary project will not only assess the prevention of biofilm formation using in vitro models and environmentally sourced "real-life" biofilms, but also what impact the actives have on the community structure (metataxonomic analysis), gene expression (transcriptomic analysis) and resulting metabolites (e.g. those linked to odour via electronic-nose techniques and / or virulence). Imaging and high throughput techniques will also be employed. The main objectives of this project are to:1. Generate fundamental insights on microbial interactions (bacteria and fungi) at the surface/soil - cell level and cell-cell level2. Develop a greater mechanistic understanding of how individual antimicrobial actives work on single species of microbes; bioavailabilty and penetration into the biofilm3. Utilise high throughput capabilities to identify synergistic combinations that deliver a step change in augmented antimicrobial performance against complex microbial communities4. Create fundamental, mechanistic understanding of how multiple actives and materials can influence complex microbial communities at surfaces during initial biofilm formation and subsequent development We would anticipate insights would be transferable to other surfaces, relevant for Unilever (BPC; potentially self preserving products) and non-Unilever applications (e.g. medical devices; industrial cleaning)