Журнал микробных и биохимических технологий

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Biofilm Related to Animal Health, Zoonosis and Food Transmitted Diseases: Alternative Targets for Antimicrobial Strategy?

Domenico Schillaci and Maria Vitale

The biofilm is a complex community of microbial cells that are associated with a surface and enclosed in a self-produced biopolymer matrix. Such structured community is a response of bacteria to a signal system named quorum sensing (QS) constituted by inter-cell communication through the production of small molecules called autoinducers (AIs) that trigger a cascade of events in gene expression. When the concentration of the AIs molecules reach a certain threshold, the bacterial population acts as a single organism, collectively expressing virulence or biofilm forming genes. Gram-positive bacteria use modified oligopeptides as QS effectors molecules.