Surfaces like glass can be tried, but it is usually convenient to work in multi-well plates, so I would like to know whether any modification in media etc. can help.
Addition of sucrose, we have already tried.
What bacterial species are you working with? The ability to form biofilm strongly depends on the bacterial species and the culture conditions (medium, temperature, presence of certain divalent cations...). The substrate also plays a key role. Hydrophilic surfaces such as plasma-treated polymers or positively charged poly-L-Lys-treated surfaces improve cell adhesion.
There are strains that are simply poor biofilm producers; in others, biofilm formation is triggered by nutrient availability or environmental factors. To give you a detailed answer we would need the species you are finding problems with.
We are working with Streptococcus mutans, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Candida albicans.
Hi Vijay,
one of the precursors to biofilm attachment is that there is a chemical affinity of the organism to the surface, and (commonly) that they have an ability to degrade that surface. The conditioning film plays a critical role. The surface charge of the organism (different for gram negatives and gram positives) is also important. I would hazard a guess that an obligate anaerobe (mutans), an aerobe( Pseudo) and a fungus (Candida) would all have different chemical requirements for attachment and may not be able to attach to the same surfaces.
I also guess that S.mutans would be incapable of forming a biofilm in pure culture for the reasons outlined above.
hope this helps,
cheers,
Richard
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