Swimming in Information? Physical Limits to Learning by Quorum Sensing

Hagen, Stephen J.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-1402-9_7

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…After the biofilms are matured, the EPS protects the bacteria from physical attacks and drug treatments such as antibiotics. Bacteria inside biofilms constantly monitor the environment and induce specific phenotypes as response to any sensed signal [9]. As a response to harsh environments, the dispersal mechanism is activated.…”

Section: Biofilm and Breakdown Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Using Competing Bacterial Communication to Disassemble Biofilms

Martins

Barros

Balasubramaniam

2016

Proceedings of the 3rd ACM International Conference on Nanoscale Computing and Communication

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In recent years, bacterial infections have become a major public health concern due to their ability to cooperate between single and multiple species resisting to various forms of treatments (e.g., antibiotics). One form of protection is through biofilms, where the bacteria produce a protective medium known as the Extracellular Polymeric Substances (EPS ). Researchers are pursuing new multi-disciplinary approaches to treating and kerb the evolving process of these infections through the biofilms, to lower the humans' antibiotic dependence that can result in the so-called "superbugs". Although various solutions have been proposed to break biofilms, they are based on applying drugs or using nanoparticles. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach, where bacteria will cooperate and surround the biofilms to consume the nutrients. By hijacking the nutrients in the environment and blocking the flow from reaching the biofilms, this will lead to starvation, forcing them to break their structure. Preliminary simulations show that a small action radius of quorum sensing molecules is needed to maximise bacteria attraction to a particular location and create the protective wall. Therefore, this formation is capable of speeds up biofilm dispersal process by two hours.

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Section: Biofilm and Breakdown Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Considering the Ac as the maximum QS level, it is possible to specify the maximum action radius of the protective wall [9]. The action radius is the maximum distance that a bacterium can be with respect to the protective wall, in order for the attraction process to occur.…”

Section: Attraction Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%