Abstract
The early colonization of surfaces and subsequent biofilm development have severe impacts in environmental, industrial, and biomedical settings since they entail high costs and health risks. To develop more effective biofilm control strategies, there is a need to obtain laboratory biofilms that resemble those found in natural or man-made settings. Since microbial adhesion and biofilm formation are strongly affected by hydrodynamics, the knowledge of flow characteristics in different marine, food processing, and medical device locations is essential. Once the hydrodynamic conditions are known, platforms for cell adhesion and biofilm formation should be selected and operated, in order to obtain reproducible biofilms that mimic those found in target scenarios. This review focuses on the most widely used platforms that enable the study of initial microbial adhesion and biofilm formation under controlled hydrodynamic conditions—modified Robbins devices, flow chambers, rotating biofilm devices, microplates, and microfluidic devices—and where numerical simulations have been used to define relevant flow characteristics, namely the shear stress and shear rate.
Highlights
Biofilms are surface-attached communities of microorganisms, establishing threedimensional structures composed of bacteria surrounded by a self-made matrix [1]
A custom-made, semi-circular flow cell was designed to evaluate the performance of different surface coatings in preventing biofouling in the marine environment [22], food industry [24,41], and medical devices [49,50]. The hydrodynamics of this flow cell system was fully characterized by Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) [48], which allows the guarantee that all sampling coupons are exposed to the same shear forces and provides knowledge of the flow rate and Reynolds number, which is necessary in order to operate this platform and simulate the shear stress and/or shear strain described for different real scenarios
A detailed hydrodynamic analysis of the 12-well microplates [71] allows us to define the operational conditions that should be used in the laboratory bench to further assess the biofilm formation capacity of marine bacteria [70,71] and the antibiofilm activity of novel surface coatings [22,82] under hydrodynamic conditions prevailing in natural aquatic environments
Summary
Biofilms are surface-attached communities of microorganisms, establishing threedimensional structures composed of bacteria surrounded by a self-made matrix [1]. The most commonly used platforms for the in vitro assessment of microbial adhesion and biofilm formation under flow conditions—modified Robbins devices, flow chambers, rotating biofilm devices, microplates, and microfluidic devices—are introduced, and their main advantages and disadvantages are discussed These testing platforms have been used transversally in the environmental, industrial, and medical fields, mainly with the aim of evaluating the effects of different substratum features, microbial strains, and shear forces on adhesion and biofilm formation, due to their ability to control the hydrodynamics (flow rate and/or shear stress or shear rate) and recreate in vivo flow conditions. This becomes a critical step in translating research into practical applications
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