Interaction of biofilm-forming bacteria during the early phase of biofilm formation

Abstract

Understanding the interactions among microorganisms in marine biofilm is very important. Still the information is quite limited. For studying interactions among microorganisms in biofilm matrix approximately 200 bacterial strains were isolated from the acrylic surface emerged in seawater. Four strains were selected among the isolates based on the cell surface hydrophobicity and attachment ability. Three of them have high value of hydrophobicity and/or attachment ability and remained one showed low values. The selected strains assigned into Erythrobacter longus, Microcucco s luteus, α-Proterobacterium MBCI1876 and α-Proterobacterium SOGA11 based on 16S rDNA partial sequence information. The ecological role of selected 4 strains in biofilm matrix was elucidated from the information of succession of dominant strains and composition changes of EPS during the biofilm formation. [This research was granted to HK Lee from NRL Program of the Ministry of Science & Technology, Korea]