title: Correlation between Enterococcus faecalis biofilms development stage and quantitative surface roughness using atomic force microscopy.
abstract: Biofilms are assemblages of microorganisms and their associated extracellular products at an interface and typically with an abiotic or biotic surface. The study of the morphology of biofilms is important because they are associated with processes of biofouling, corrosion, catalysis, pollutant transformation, dental caries, drug resistance, and so forth. In the literature, biofilms have been examined by atomic force microscopy (AFM), which has proven to be a potent tool to study different aspects of the biofilm development on solid surfaces. In this work, we used AFM to investigate topographical changes during the development process of Enterococcus faecalis biofilms, which were generated on sterile cellulose nitrate membrane (CNM) filters in brain heart infusion (BHI) broth agar blood plates after 24, 36, 72, 192, and 360 h. AFM height images showed topographical changes due to biofilm development, which were used to characterize several aspects of the bacterial surface, such as the presence of extracellular polymeric substance, and the biofilm development stage. Changes in the development stage of the biofilm were shown to correlate with changes in the surface roughness as quantified through the mean roughness.
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Ciência e Tecnologia de Materiais, Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Caixa Postal 6030, Campus do Pici, 60455-900 Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. rpsantos2000@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Ricardo P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.forename: Theodora T P
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Arruda
authors.forename: Cibele B M
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Carvalho
authors.forename: Victor A
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Carneiro
authors.forename: Lara Q V
authors.initials: LQ
authors.lastname: Braga
authors.forename: Edson H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Teixeira
authors.forename: Francisco V S
authors.initials: FV
authors.lastname: Arruda
authors.forename: Benildo S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Cavada
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Havt
authors.forename: Taianá M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: de Oliveira
authors.forename: Gustavo A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Bezerra
authors.forename: Valder N
authors.initials: VN
authors.lastname: Freire
mesh_terms: D018441:Biofilms / Q000254:growth & development*; D003101:Collodion; D003470:Culture Media; D013293:Enterococcus faecalis / Q000254:growth & development*; D006801:Humans; D008851:Micropore Filters; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force / Q000379:methods*; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media; D003101:Collodion