Biofilm Blocker

Compared with free-swimming bacteria, those within a biofilm – a tough, slimy, strongly adherent layer – are considerably more resilient. Think of your teeth. Gargling mouthwash might eliminate some loose bacteria, but properly removing the plaque biofilm requires physical brushing. Of course, for a biofilm on a medical implant inside the body, brushing is not an option. And, with antibiotics being inefficient against such bacterial growths, serious chronic infections become a real threat. The good news is researchers have discovered a promising biofilm-preventing substance, naturally produced by plants. The metabolite, called MEcPP, prevents bacteria from producing fimbriae – filamentous structures that enable the bugs to bind surfaces and begin biofilm formation. The image shows bacteria with (top) and without (bottom) fimbriae, the latter due to high levels of MEcPP. Finding a way to coat medical implants with such a substance, might therefore be a strategy for blocking biofilms before they take hold.

Written by Ruth Williams

Ruth Williams

Writer

Ruth is a freelance science journalist based in the US. She's a regular correspondent for The Scientist, and her work has appeared in The Lancet, Nature, Scientific American Mind, BBC Focus and elsewhere. Twitter @rooph

Website

• Image from work by Jingzhe Guo and colleagues
• Institute for Integrative Genome Biology and Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, November 2024