Cell: Biofilms are more complex than we thought

Biofilms are prevalent in the living world, on sewers, kitchen counters and even the surfaces of our teeth
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A previous study showed that these biofilms employ complex systems to communicate with each other, while another study demonstrated that biofilms have strong memory capabilities

Süel's lab, along with researchers at Stanford University and Pompeu Fabra University in Spain, have now discovered a signature of biofilms that reveals that these communities are far more advanced than previously thought
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Biological sciences graduate student Kwang-Tao Chou, former biological sciences graduate student Daisy Lee, Süel, and their colleagues found that biofilm cells are organized in complex patterns, a feature previously associated only with plants and animals, among others.

"The biofilms we're seeing are much more complex than we thought," said Süel, a professor of molecular biology in the UC San Diego Division of Biological Sciences, affiliated with the San Diego Center for Systems Biology, the Institute for Biological Circuits, and the Center for Microbial Innovation
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"From a biological perspective, our findings suggest that the concept of cellular patterns during development is much older than previously thought

Biofilm communities are made up of different types of cells
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Scientists had not previously thought that these disparate cells could be organized into regular and complex patterns

The researchers' breakthrough was the ability to identify genetic circuits for the ability of biofilms to generate community-wide biofilm concentric circles of gene expression patterns
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The researchers were then able to build predictive models that showed that the biofilm itself could produce many fragments

"Our findings demonstrate that bacterial biofilms employ a developmental patterning mechanism hitherto thought to be unique to vertebrate and plant systems," the authors noted in their Cell paper
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The findings of this study have implications for many areas of research
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Since biofilms are ubiquitous in our lives, their applications range from medicine to the food industry and even the military

"We can see that bacterial communities are not just clumps of cells," says Süel, who believes that research collaborations could provide a new paradigm for studying how bacteria develop
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"With bacterial systems, we can provide some answers that are difficult to obtain in vertebrate and plant systems, because bacteria provide a system that is easier to obtain experimentally and can provide new insights into the development field

Co-authors of the paper include: Zhou Guangtao (UC San Diego graduate student), Li Dongyan (former UC San Diego graduate student, now Stanford University postdoctoral scholar), Chiou Jian-geng (UCSD postdoctoral scholar), Leticia Galera-Laporta (UCSD postdoctoral scholar) UC San Diego Postdoctoral Scholar), San Ly (former UC San Diego Fellow), Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo (Pompeu Fabra University Professor), and Gürol Süel (UC San Diego Professor)

Journal Reference :

1. Kwang-Tao Chou, Dong-yeon D.