Nassar Rania, Hachim Mahmood, Nassar Mohannad, Kaklamanos Eleftherios G, Jamal Mohamed, Williams David, Senok Abiola
College of Medicine, Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
School of Dentistry, College of Biomedical and Life Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom.
Front Microbiol. 2021 Jan 28;11:607002. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.607002. eCollection 2020.
Bacterial biofilms are microbial lifestyles found in all environments. Up to 80% of human infections and 60-70% of hospital-acquired infections have a biofilm origin, with one of the leading causes of these infections. Microorganisms in biofilms exhibit significant antimicrobial resistance which poses important treatment challenges, hence the urgent need to identify novel antibiofilm strategies. Microbes form biofilms in response to various factors, and once these 3-dimentional structures form they are highly recalcitrant to removal. The switch from planktonic lifestyle to the biofilm protected mode of growth results in a phenotypic shift in the behavior of the microorganisms in terms of growth rate and gene expression. Given these changes, investigation of microbial gene expression and their modulation at different stages of biofilm maturation is needed to provide vital insight into the behavior of biofilm cells. In this study, we analyzed publicly available transcriptomic dataset of biofilms at different stages of maturation to identify consistently upregulated genes irrespective of the biofilm maturation stage. Our reanalysis identified a total of 6 differentially expressed genes upregulated in both 48 and 144-h old biofilms. Functional analysis revealed that these genes encode for proteins which play a role in key microbial metabolic pathways. However, these genes, as yet, are unrelated or fully studied in the context of biofilm. Moreover, the findings of this work, suggest that these genes may represent potential novel targets for the development of more effective antibiofilm strategies against biofilm-associated infections.
细菌生物膜是在所有环境中都能发现的微生物生存方式。高达80%的人类感染以及60 - 70%的医院获得性感染都源于生物膜，是这些感染的主要原因之一。生物膜中的微生物表现出显著的抗微生物耐药性，这带来了重要的治疗挑战，因此迫切需要确定新的抗生物膜策略。微生物会因各种因素形成生物膜，一旦这些三维结构形成，它们就极难被清除。从浮游生活方式转变为受生物膜保护的生长模式会导致微生物在生长速率和基因表达方面的行为发生表型转变。鉴于这些变化，需要研究微生物在生物膜成熟不同阶段的基因表达及其调控，以深入了解生物膜细胞的行为。在本研究中，我们分析了公开可用的处于不同成熟阶段的生物膜转录组数据集，以确定无论生物膜成熟阶段如何都持续上调的基因。我们的重新分析共鉴定出6个在48小时和144小时龄的生物膜中均上调的差异表达基因。功能分析表明，这些基因编码的蛋白质在关键的微生物代谢途径中发挥作用。然而，这些基因在生物膜背景下尚未被关联或充分研究。此外，这项工作的发现表明，这些基因可能代表针对生物膜相关感染开发更有效抗生物膜策略的潜在新靶点。
