Tuesday, October 30, 2012: 9:00 AM
Biofilms are surface-attached aggregated communities of bacteria. In many medical and dental situations, these communities consist of multiple species and the component species interact to either inhibit or cause disease. Using dental plaque and chronic wounds as examples, two modes of communication will be discussed in this presentation. The first is coaggregation. Coaggregation, the specific recognition of genetically distinct microorganism, mediates targeting, adhesion and juxtaposition between species. It has been shown to contribute towards biofilm development and disrupting and/or exploiting such interactions will potentially inhibit and/or alter the integration and retention of biofilm species. Autoinducer-2 (AI-2) is another mechanism of communication. AI-2, a family of inter-species cell-cell signaling molecules, represents a mode of communication that also contributes to biofilm development. Interestingly, AI-2 concentration is important in eliciting cell-cell communication and this may be useful in manipulating the activities of species within biofilms. In conjunction with the discussion of these topic areas we will highlight new technologies to explore these interactions and discuss potential avenues to use cell-cell signaling and coaggregation to control multi-species biofilms in health and disease.