Biofilm: Bacteria’s way of living
Summary
This educational video talks about biofilms and their purpose. Biofilms
are colonies of millions of bacteria “glued” together with polysaccharides.
These polysaccharides have the consistency of mucus. Biofilm allows the bacteria to grow wherever
there is water, meaning that they are present in a very wide variety of environments. Like cities, biofilm allows the bacteria to work together to find food, survive attacks, and spread. Some biofilms, like dental plaque, consists of hundreds of different bacteria working together to thrive (and cause dental problems).
Bacteria that live in biofilm end up being almost 1000x more resistant to antibiotics than lone bacteria; this means that almost 80% of infectious bacteria, including those that cause plague and chorea, live as biofilm. These resistant films of bacteria can cause so much damage that they might have to be surgically removed from the human body. Scientists are only recently figuring out how to deal with severe biofilm infections.
Bacteria that live in biofilm end up being almost 1000x more resistant to antibiotics than lone bacteria; this means that almost 80% of infectious bacteria, including those that cause plague and chorea, live as biofilm. These resistant films of bacteria can cause so much damage that they might have to be surgically removed from the human body. Scientists are only recently figuring out how to deal with severe biofilm infections.
Relevance:
In class, we had learned about the different types of microorganisms,
especially bacteria. We learned that intestinal bacteria formed films on the
surface of the large intestine, and that many bacteria had the capability to
produce slime. This video reveals that many infectious bacteria also create
these slimy films, and use it to their advantage.
Article Info:
Author: scishow (Hank Green)
Date of Publication: Published on Dec 11, 2012
Is the mucus in plants or animals?
ReplyDeleteMucus is actually a sticky secretion from the body that traps bacteria. I was wrong...basically what the guy was trying to says is that the polysaccharides produced by bacteria are similar to mucus.
ReplyDelete