Influence of Surface Properties on the Formation of Biofilms

当细菌附着在固体表面时，伴随着它们新的固定生活方式的一些变化。 其中最值得注意的是分泌一种称为细胞外聚合物的粘液状物质。这是你早上在牙齿上感觉到的薄膜，或者当你站在水下的岩石上时，脚下的滑层。被吸附的细胞、分泌的产物和其他被招募的微生物的组合被称为生物膜，并引起了化学家、生物学家、材料科学家和工业工程师的注意。水生生物膜在几秒钟内就在船体上形成，促进了藤壶等大型海洋生物的附着，从而由于额外的阻力而增加了燃料成本。几乎所有与水接触的工业制造过程都在努力保持领先于细菌污染，阻碍管道中化学品的流动，并改变热交换器的热传导。 另一方面，生物膜是现代污水处理策略的关键组成部分。 固体表面的性质是确定为形成生物膜的关键因素之一。然而，经过40年的调查，这仍然是获得知识最少的领域之一。挑战在于界面环境的复杂性，包括基质、界面水分子、溶解离子和溶液中的其他物质。在过去的七年中，我们已经开发了一个实验和建模工具的组合，这是面向在固-水界面的结构阐明。我们现在建议调查表面和溶液条件如何影响生物膜发展的早期阶段。我们将采用光谱学，显微镜和数据分析程序的组合，实时监测生物膜界面环境的变化。这项工作的预期结果将使科学家们能够更深入地了解控制生物膜生长最早阶段的相互作用的分子水平，从而制定新的控制策略。沿着，这项研究将提供一个优秀的多学科的培训环境，在各级初级研究人员，在学术和工业环境中的领导作用做好准备。

When bacteria attach to solid surfaces, several changes accompany their new immobile lifestyle. Most noticeable among these is the secretion of a slimy material known as extracellular polymeric substance. This is the film that you feel on your teeth in the morning, or the slippery layer under your feet when standing on rocks under water. The combination of adsorbed cells, secreted products, and other recruited microbes is called a biofilm, and has attracted the attention of chemists, biologists, materials scientists and industrial engineers. Aquatic biofilms form on the hulls of ships within seconds, promote the attachments of larger marine organisms such as barnacles, and thereby increase fuel costs due to the additional drag. Nearly all industrial manufacturing processes in contact with water struggle to stay one step ahead of bacterial fouling, impeding the flow of chemicals in pipes, and altering the thermal conduction of heat exchangers. On the other hand, biofilms are key components modern sewage and wastewater treatment strategies. The nature of the solid surface is one of the factors identified as key to the formation of biofilms. And yet, after four decades of investigation, this remains one of the areas in which the least amount of knowledge has been acquired. The challenge lies in the complexity of the interfacial environment, involving the substrate, interfacial water molecules, dissolved ions, and other species in solutions. Over the past seven years, we have developed a combination of experimental and modeling tools that is geared towards structure elucidation at the solid-aqueous interface. We now propose to investigate how surface and solution conditions affect the early stages of biofilm development. We will employ a combination of spectroscopy, microscopy, and data analysis routines to monitor changes in the biofilm interfacial environment in real-time. The anticipated results of this work will enable scientists to have a deeper molecular-level picture of the interactions that govern the earliest stages of biofilm growth, leading to new strategies for their control. Along the way, this research will provide an outstanding multi-disciplinary training environment for junior researchers at all levels, in preparation for leadership roles in academic and industrial settings.