Molecular Characterisation by Infrared Spectroscopy of Bordetella pertussis Grown as Biofilm

A. BOSCH; N.E. MASSA; A. DONOLO; O. YANTORNO

PHYSICA STATUS SOLIDI B-BASIC RESEARCH

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH

Lugar: Weinheim; Año: 2000 vol. 220 p. 636 - 640

0370-1972

It is known that bacterial adhesion to tissues plays an important role in microbial infection and that organisms attached to a surface can express a characteristic phenotype. Although Bordetella pertussis, the etiological agent of whooping cough, has adapted itself to colonise the human respiratory tracts, most of the studies of the expression of their virulence factors have been obtained from bacteria cultivated as cell suspension inliquid media. In this work, we show that B. pertussis can grow attached to an abiotic surface and that this attachment stimulates the production of exopolymers (slime) leading to the formation of biofilms. By using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis, we found that these biofilmgrown cells are chemically different from the cells grown in both, liquid and solid media. Furthermore, we demonstrated that this slime is mainly composed of carbohydrates.