Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

BIOFILMS

A new wrinkle in biofilm structure

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 20, page 509 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

Biofilms can form complex structures when they grow, determined both by intrinsic bacterial and extrinsic environmental factors. Geisel et al. studied the structural development of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms grown under steady flow and on solid surfaces, which, for example, might be relevant conditions encountered in industrial settings. Similar to previous work on agar plates, they found that growing biofilms formed wrinkles, increasing the surface area. However, in contrast to previous work, on solid surfaces the wrinkles also formed at the bottom of the biofilms, owing to detachment from the surface, which depended on the adhesive strength of the surface. These wrinkles formed channels, which contained swimming bacteria. On a ‘stickier’ solid surface, no wrinkles formed. The authors conclude that mechanical properties strongly influence the biofilm morphology and that changing those properties is a way to influence biofilm development.

Your institute does not have access to this article

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

References

Original article

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nature Reviews Microbiology http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/

    Ursula Hofer

Authors
  1. Ursula Hofer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ursula Hofer.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hofer, U. A new wrinkle in biofilm structure. Nat Rev Microbiol 20, 509 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-022-00765-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-022-00765-2

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing