Revealing the Bacterial Quorum-Sensing Effect on the Biofilm Formation of Diatom Cylindrotheca sp. Using Multimodal Imaging

Diatoms contribute to carbon fixation in the oceans by photosynthesis and always form biofouling organized by extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in the marine environment. Bacteria-produced quorum-sensing signal molecules N-acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs) were found to play an important role i...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Microorganisms (Basel) 2023-07, Vol.11 (7), p.1841
Main Authors: Yang, Cuiyun, Song, Guojuan, Son, Jiyoung, Howard, Logan, Yu, Xiao-Ying
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algae
Bacteria
BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
biofilm
Biofilms
Biofouling
Carbon
Carbon fixation
Confocal microscopy
Cylindrotheca
diatom
Enzymes
extracellular polymeric substances
Extracellular polymers
Ions
Lactones
Marine environment
Marine microorganisms
Mass spectrometry
Mass spectroscopy
Molecular chains
Morphology
N-acyl homoserine lactone
Oceans
Photosynthesis
Plankton
Scanning electron microscopy
Scanning microscopy
Secondary ion mass spectrometry
ToF-SIMS
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Diatoms contribute to carbon fixation in the oceans by photosynthesis and always form biofouling organized by extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in the marine environment. Bacteria-produced quorum-sensing signal molecules N-acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs) were found to play an important role in the development of sp. in previous studies, but the EPS composition change was unclear. This study used the technology of alcian blue staining and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM), and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) to directly observe the biofilm formation process. The results showed that AHLs promote the growth rates of diatoms and the EPS secretion of biofilm components. AHLs facilitated the diatom-biofilm formation by a forming process dependent on the length of carbon chains. AHLs increased the biofilm thickness and the fluorescence intensity and then altered the three-dimensional (3D) structures of the diatom-biofilm. In addition, the enhanced EPS content in the diatom-biofilm testified that AHLs aided biofilm formation. This study provides a collection of new experimental evidence of the interaction between bacteria and microalgae in fouling biofilms.
ISSN:2076-2607
2076-2607
DOI:10.3390/microorganisms11071841