Carbon starvation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms selects for dispersal insensitive mutants.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Biofilms disperse in response to specific environmental cues, such as reduced oxygen concentration, changes in nutrient concentration and exposure to nitric oxide. Interestingly, biofilms do not completely disperse under these conditions, which is generally attributed to physiological heterogeneity of the biofilm. However, our results suggest that genetic heterogeneity also plays an important role in the non-dispersing population of P. aeruginosa in biofilms after nutrient starvation.

Results

In this study, 12.2% of the biofilm failed to disperse after 4 d of continuous starvation-induced dispersal. Cells were recovered from the dispersal phase as well as the remaining biofilm. For 96 h starved biofilms, rugose small colony variants (RSCV) were found to be present

SUBMITTER: Nair HAS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8459498 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature