Klebsiella pneumoniae flocculation dynamics.
The bacterial pathogen Klebsiella pneumoniae is a cause of community- and hospital-acquired lung, urinary tract and blood stream infections. It is a common contaminant of indwelling catheters and it is theorized in that context that systemic infection follows shedding of aggregates off of surface-adherent biofilm colonies. In an effort to better understand bacterial proliferation in the host bloodstream, we develop a PDE model for the flocculation dynamics of Klebsiella pneumoniae in suspension. Existence and uniqueness results are provided, as well as a brief description of the numerical approximation scheme. We generate artificial data and illustrate the requirements to accurately identify proliferation, aggregation, and fragmentation of flocs in the experimental domain of interest.
Bortz
D M
DM
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0526, USA. dmbortz@colorado.edu
Jackson
T L
TL
Taylor
K A
KA
Thompson
A P
AP
Younger
J G
JG
D018441:Biofilms / Q000254:growth & development*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005427:Flocculation; D007711:Klebsiella pneumoniae / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D009716:Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted