Journal
MICROBIOLOGY-SGM
Volume 155, Issue -, Pages 724-732Publisher
MICROBIOLOGY SOC
DOI: 10.1099/mic.0.021501-0
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- California State University program for Education and Research in Biotechnology (CSuperb)
- National Science Foundation Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education Program [0406533]
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Conventional disinfection and sterilization methods are often ineffective with biofilms, which are ubiquitous, hard-to-destroy microbial communities embedded in a matrix mostly composed of exopolysaccharides. The use of gas-discharge plasmas represents an alternative method, since plasmas contain a mixture of charged particles, chemically reactive species and UV radiation, whose decontamination potential for free-living, planktonic micro-organisms is well established. In this study, biofilms were produced using Chromobacterium violaceum, a Gram-negative bacterium present in soil and water and used in this study as a model organism. Biofilms were subjected to an atmospheric pressure plasma jet for different exposure times. Our results show that 99.6% of culturable cells are inactivated after a 5 min treatment. The survivor curve shows double-slope kinetics with a rapid initial decline in c.f.u. ml(-1) followed by a much slower decline with D values that are longer than those for the inactivation of planktonic organisms, suggesting a more complex inactivation mechanism for biofilms. DNA and ATP determinations together with atomic force microscopy and fluorescence microscopy show that non-culturable cells are still alive after short plasma exposure times. These results indicate the potential of plasma for biofilm inactivation and suggest that cells go through a sequential set of physiological and morphological changes before inactivation.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available