Prominent extracts as antibiofilm agents with intra and inter species activity

Description :

The aim of this project is to provoke the dispersion and prevention of mature biofilms by using biofilm extracts produced during the dispersion stage. The inoculation of mature biofilms with these extracts may leave biofilm-forming cells more vulnerable to antibiotics. In this work, two type of extracts will be tested; extracts present in the extracellular medium and internal extracts of biofilm cells after sonication. The biofilm internal extracts will be tested separately or in combination with external extracts for their ability to disperse mature biofilms. The in vitro disk diffusion assay and microdilution assay will be used to test the effect of different types of antibiotics on biofilm viable cells after dispersion. The activity of these extracts not only on same species but also on different species will be elucidated. Moreover, the cytotoxicity of these extracts will be determined using MTS assay. Visual techniques such as scanning electron microscopy and confocal microscopy will be used to image biofilms. Furthermore, different techniques such as SEM, XRD, TEM, GLSM, HPLC, GC-MS, MALDI-TOFF, Flow-Cytometry, colorimetric method may be needed in order to detect and quantify the biofilm growth at different macro and micromolecular levels. In addition, genetic expressions and implicated Quorum sensing in the dispersion of the tested biofilms will be studied.