A thread on our lab’s @BiotechSASTRA1 @SastraUniv new paper along with @sandeep09201 @I_am_Veena and Chandramohan, published in FEMS Microbiology Ecology @FEMSmicro on #BacterialBiofilms
@IndiaBiofilms

https://academic.oup.com/femsec/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/femsec/fiaa214/5924450

As this is the month when many people do sketches of diverse topics, and participate in #inktober, we thought to narrate the story of our #ResearchPaper with sketches made by some of our past and present students to celebrate the #publication

Uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) forms #biofilm during infection (and perhaps it also lives in biofilm in non-host conditions).

Illustration by Jeroline Mary @JerolineMary who was doing a wonderful work on biofilm flocs in wastewater in our lab for her UG project

#BiofilmMatrix holds the cells together in the biofilm, devoid of which the biofilm weakens. In an earlier study, we had showed that #Salmonella #matrix can act as public good, and when matrix-non-producers infiltrate, it could weaken the pellicle biofilm. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2015.01468/full

We exploited a simple Congo red agar method to screen bacteria from wastewater soil that could inhibit UPEC matrix. This simple method facilitated us to design a high-throughput screening protocol to isolate matrix inhibitors.

This chapter describes the congo red agar method.
https://link.springer.com/protocol/10.1007/978-1-4939-7240-1_11

Illustration by our recently passed out MTech project student, Ponmani Varuna, who was working on UPEC heterogeneity @Varuna54321

We identified the bacterial isolates that could inhibit UPEC matrix production. Interestingly they all belonged to Enterobacteriaceae family, which have an ecological overlap.

Illustration by Preethy, a PhD student is @SastraUniv. She works on Bone Biology

We then performed competition experiments between the UPEC and the bacterial isolates in planktonic and biofilm growth

Illustration by Kavi Bharathi @I_amkavi11, my PhD student and an active supporter of our lab’s endeavour

Competition is categorized as exploitative and interference competition.
@saramitri discusses microbial competition nicely in this review
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966842X16300749

Illustration by Kavi Bharathi @I_amkavi11

The results of competition experiments were remarkably interesting, where we observed mutual inhibition.
A #Battlefield

Illustration by Jeroline Mary @JerolineMary

During biofilm formation, all combinations showed reduction in productivity and fitness, as compared to planktonic growth.
Isn't it like the territorial fights between higher animal groups?

We further selected an isolate identified as Salmonella and competed against UPEC in the biofilm. Microscopic analysis revealed that matrix inhibition led to competitive exclusion of UPEC.

Illustration of #CompetitiveExclusion by Kavi Bharathi @I_amkavi11

It was a smart strategy by Salmonella, a kind of benign interference competition to colonize surface by matrix inhibition.
#Biofilms are a great fun to work @akos @IndiaBiofilms @KaushikLab @atVidu @ukbiofilms @woundman

We greatly acknowledge the funding from @serbonline and @SastraUniv for infrastructural facilities to carry out this work.

Also, the manuscript was substantially improved due to the super editorial by @RolfsMicrobes and the anonymous reviewers.
The discussions with @iamsamayp , @nonresidentdesi , @vraman16 , and @sureshnambeesan was fun.