Roadmap on emerging concepts in the physical biology of bacterial biofilms: from surface sensing to community formation
Name
Wong+et+al_2021_Phys._Biol._10.1088_1478-3975_abdc0e.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.6 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
dd9a382de7849e67674362d89339ea22
Author(s)
Dunkel, Joern
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Physical Biology
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Bacterial biofilms are communities of bacteria that exist as aggregates that can adhere to surfaces or be free-standing. This complex, social mode of cellular organization is fundamental to the physiology of microbes and often exhibits surprising behavior. Bacterial biofilms are more than the sum of their parts: single-cell behavior has a complex relation to collective community behavior, in a manner perhaps cognate to the complex relation between atomic physics and condensed matter physics. Biofilm microbiology is a relatively young field by biology standards, but it has already attracted intense attention from physicists. Sometimes, this attention takes the form of seeing biofilms as inspiration for new physics. In this roadmap, we highlight the work of those who have taken the opposite strategy: we highlight the work of physicists and physical scientists who use physics to engage fundamental concepts in bacterial biofilm microbiology, including adhesion, sensing, motility, signaling, memory, energy flow, community formation and cooperativity. These contributions are juxtaposed with microbiologists who have made recent important discoveries on bacterial biofilms using state-of-the-art physical methods. The contributions to this roadmap exemplify how well physics and biology can be combined to achieve a new synthesis, rather than just a division of labor.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 unported license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
10.1088/1478-3975/abdc0e
