(190ak) Spatial-Temporal Dynamics of the Biofilm Formation

Frequently, microorganisms are organized in microbial communities in multilayer structures, such as biofilms, which offer protection to microbial against environmental stresses and perturbations. Life in these communities has become the focus of attention of several researches due to the (positive/negative) impact of biofilms on industrial processes and human health (Costerton, 1995).

Biofilms are heterogeneous and crowded systems, characterized by the close proximity of microbial cells and inhomogeneous conditions. Under such conditions, the local nutrient availability may be strongly affected by the presence of solids components that hinder their diffusion.

The aim of this work is to analyze the impact of crowding conditions on the biofilm formation, stability, and evolution, and on the on the profile of the metabolites and the spatiotemporal distribution of the species and phenotypes. For this purpose, we developed a methodology that combines computational techniques such as Thermodynamics-based Flux Balance Analysis (Henry et al. 2007), and Cellular Automata (CA) to integrate information from different layers of the multi-scale problem: (i) nutrient diffusion, (ii) cell metabolism, (iii) metabolic fluxes, (iv) reaction thermodynamics, and (v) cell division and shoving.

The growth of Escherichia coli in biofilms is provided as an illustrative example. The crowding conditions along with the cross-feeding interactions determine the spatial distribution of the metabolites, and phenotypic composition of the biofilm. This individual based approach provides a deeper insight of the spatiotemporal dynamics of biofilms, which can be further used as strategies strategies for the design and control of biofilm and microbial community.

References

• Costerton, J.W. 1995. Ind. Microbiol. 15:137-140.
• Henry, C.S., Broadbelt, L.J., and Hatzimanikatis, V. 2007. Biophys. J. 92:1792-1805.