Role of environmental and antibiotic stress on Staphylococcus epidermidis biofilm microstructure.

ABSTRACT: Cellular clustering and separation of Staphylococcus epidermidis surface adherent biofilms were found to depend significantly on both antibiotic and environmental stress present during growth under steady flow. Image analysis techniques common to colloidal science were applied to image volumes acquired with high-resolution confocal laser scanning microscopy to extract spatial positions of individual bacteria in volumes of size ~30 × 30 × 15 μm(3). The local number density, cluster distribution, and radial distribution function were determined at each condition by analyzing the statistics of the bacterial spatial positions. Environmental stressors of high osmotic pressure (776 mM NaCl) and sublethal antibiotic dose (1.9 μg/mL vancomycin) decreased the average bacterial local number density

SUBMITTER: Stewart EJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4144346 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature