Adaptability to biofilms is hastened in P. aeruginosa mutators by phenotypic diversification

LUJAN, ADELA M; MOLIN, SOEREN; SMANIA ANDREA MARIA

Puerto Madryn

Congreso; 46 Annual Meeting Argentine Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; 2010

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular (SAIB)

The aim of the present study was to investigate the structure,phenotypic diversification and competitiveness of Pseudomonasaeruginosa mutator biofilms. For this purpose, the environmentalstrain Hex1T and its respective mutS mutant, Hex1TMS, weregrown in flow-cell biofilms and inspected by confocal laserscanning microscopy. Structural analyses revealed that biofilmsformed by Hex1TMS strain were similar to those formed by Hex1Tstrain, displaying the characteristic mushroom-shaped structures ofP. aeruginosa biofilms. However, mutator biofilms showedsignificantly increased phenotypic diversity in comparison to wildtype biofilms, with a Shannon-Weaver Index (H) of 0.31 and 0.03,respectively (P