Diffusive transport through a model host-biofilm system

Free-living biofilms have been subject to considerable attention, and basic physical principles for them are generally accepted. Many host-biofilm systems, however, consist of heterogeneous mixtures of aggregates of microbes intermixed with host material and are much less studied. Here we analyze a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics, 2015-08, Vol.92 (2), p.022703-022703, Article 022703
Main Authors: Aristotelous, A C, Klapper, I, Grabovsky, Y, Pabst, B, Pitts, B, Stewart, P S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biofilms
Diffusion
Green Fluorescent Proteins - genetics
Green Fluorescent Proteins - metabolism
Microscopy, Confocal
Models, Biological
Staphylococcus aureus - physiology
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:Free-living biofilms have been subject to considerable attention, and basic physical principles for them are generally accepted. Many host-biofilm systems, however, consist of heterogeneous mixtures of aggregates of microbes intermixed with host material and are much less studied. Here we analyze a key property, namely reactive depletion, in such systems and argue that two regimes are possible: (1) a homogenizable mixture of biofilm and host that in important ways acts effectively like a homogeneous macrobiofilm and (2) a distribution of separated microbiofilms within the host with independent local microenvironments.
ISSN:1539-3755
1550-2376
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevE.92.022703