Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia.
ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia.
NPJ Biofilms Microbiomes. 2021 Nov 10;7(1):80. doi: 10.1038/s41522-021-00251-2.
Biofilms are organised heterogeneous assemblages of microbial cells that are encased within a self-produced matrix. Current estimates suggest that up to 80% of bacterial and archaeal cells reside in biofilms. Since biofilms are the main mode of microbial life, understanding their biology and functions is critical, especially as controlling biofilm growth is essential in industrial, infrastructure and medical contexts. Here we discuss biofilms both as collections of individual cells, and as multicellular biological individuals, and introduce the concept of biofilms as unique incubators of diversity for the microbial world.
生物膜是由微生物细胞组成的异质聚集体，被自身产生的基质包裹。目前的估计表明，多达 80%的细菌和古菌细胞存在于生物膜中。由于生物膜是微生物的主要生存方式，了解它们的生物学和功能至关重要，特别是因为控制生物膜的生长在工业、基础设施和医疗领域是必不可少的。在这里，我们既讨论了作为单个细胞集合的生物膜，也讨论了作为多细胞生物个体的生物膜，并介绍了生物膜作为微生物世界独特的多样性孵化器的概念。
