Easy and Affordable: A New Method for the Studying of Bacterial Biofilm Formation

Background: Bacterial biofilm formation (BBF) proves itself to be in the spotlight of microbiology research due to the wide variety of infections that it can be associated with, the involvement in food spoilage, industrial biofouling and perhaps sewage treatment. However, BBF remains difficult to study due to the lack of standardization of the existing methods and the expensive equipment needed. We aim to describe a new inexpensive and easy to reproduce protocol for a 3D-printed microfluidic device that can be used to study BBF in a dynamic manner. Methods: We used the SolidWorks 3D CAD Software (EducationEdition 2019-2020, Dassault Systemes, Velizy-Villacoublay, France) to design the device and the Creality3D Ender 5 printer (Shenzhen Creality 3D Technology Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China) for its manufacture. We cultivated strains of Enterococcus faecalis, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. For the biofilm evaluation we used optical coherence tomography (OCT), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and crystal violet staining technique. Results: Based on the analysis, Enterococcus faecalis seems to produce more biofilm in the first hours while Pseudomonas aeruginosa started to take the lead on biofilm production after 24 h. Conclusions: With an estimated cost around euro0.1285 for one microfluidic device, a relatively inexpensive and easy alternative for the study of BBF was developed.

Automated summary

This study describes a new, inexpensive, and easy to reproduce protocol for a 3D-printed microfluidic device for studying bacterial biofilm formation. The results obtained from the experiments show different characteristics of biofilm production between Enterococcus faecalis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.