Phenazines affect biofilm formation by Pseudomonas aeruginosa in similar ways at various scales

Some pseudomonads produce phenazines, a group of small, redox-active compounds with diverse physiological functions In this study, we compared the phenotypes of Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain PA 14 and a mutant unable to synthesize phenazines in flow cell and colony biofilms quantitatively. Although phenazine production does not impact the ability of PA 14 to attach to surfaces, as has been shown for Pseudomonas chlororaphis (Maddula et al. 2006. 2008), It influences swarming motility and the surface-to-volume ratio of mature biofilms These results indicate that phenazines affect biofilm development across a large range of scales, but in unique ways for different Pseudomonas species (C) 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS All rights reserved