Who put the film in biofilm? The migration of a term from wastewater engineering to medicine and beyond

Sessile microorganisms were described as early as the seventeenth century. However, the term biofilm arose only in the 1960s in wastewater treatment research and was adopted later in marine fouling and in medical and dental microbiology. The sessile mode of microbial life was gradually recognized to...

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Main Authors: Flemming, Hans-Curt, Baveye, Philippe, Neu, Thomas R., Stoodley, Paul, Szewzyk, Ulrich, Wingender, Jost, Wuertz, Stefan
Other Authors: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2021
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/151966
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1519662021-10-30T20:12:07Z Who put the film in biofilm? The migration of a term from wastewater engineering to medicine and beyond Flemming, Hans-Curt Baveye, Philippe Neu, Thomas R. Stoodley, Paul Szewzyk, Ulrich Wingender, Jost Wuertz, Stefan School of Civil and Environmental Engineering Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences and Engineering Science::Biological sciences Applied Microbiology Biofilms Sessile microorganisms were described as early as the seventeenth century. However, the term biofilm arose only in the 1960s in wastewater treatment research and was adopted later in marine fouling and in medical and dental microbiology. The sessile mode of microbial life was gradually recognized to be predominant on Earth, and the term biofilm became established for the growth of microorganisms in aggregates, frequently associated with interfaces, although many, if not the majority, of them not being continuous “films” in the strict sense. In this sessile form of life, microorganisms live in close proximity in a matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). They share emerging properties, clearly distinct from solitary free floating planktonic microbial cells. Common characteristics include the formation of synergistic microconsortia, using the EPS matrix as an external digestion system, the formation of gradients and high biodiversity over microscopically small distances, resource capture and retention, facilitated gene exchange as well as intercellular communication, and enhanced tolerance to antimicrobials. Thus, biofilms belong to the class of collective systems in biology, like forests, beehives, or coral reefs, although the term film addresses only one form of the various manifestations of microbial aggregates. The uncertainty of this term is discussed, and it is acknowledged that it will not likely be replaced soon, but it is recommended to understand these communities in the broader sense of microbial aggregates. Published version Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. 2021-10-25T07:59:56Z 2021-10-25T07:59:56Z 2021 Journal Article Flemming, H., Baveye, P., Neu, T. R., Stoodley, P., Szewzyk, U., Wingender, J. & Wuertz, S. (2021). Who put the film in biofilm? The migration of a term from wastewater engineering to medicine and beyond. Npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, 7(1), 10-. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41522-020-00183-3 2055-5008 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/151966 10.1038/s41522-020-00183-3 33504794 2-s2.0-85099877426 1 7 10 en npj Biofilms and Microbiomes © 2021 The Author(s). Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Science::Biological sciences
Applied Microbiology
Biofilms
spellingShingle Science::Biological sciences
Applied Microbiology
Biofilms
Flemming, Hans-Curt
Baveye, Philippe
Neu, Thomas R.
Stoodley, Paul
Szewzyk, Ulrich
Wingender, Jost
Wuertz, Stefan
Who put the film in biofilm? The migration of a term from wastewater engineering to medicine and beyond
description Sessile microorganisms were described as early as the seventeenth century. However, the term biofilm arose only in the 1960s in wastewater treatment research and was adopted later in marine fouling and in medical and dental microbiology. The sessile mode of microbial life was gradually recognized to be predominant on Earth, and the term biofilm became established for the growth of microorganisms in aggregates, frequently associated with interfaces, although many, if not the majority, of them not being continuous “films” in the strict sense. In this sessile form of life, microorganisms live in close proximity in a matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). They share emerging properties, clearly distinct from solitary free floating planktonic microbial cells. Common characteristics include the formation of synergistic microconsortia, using the EPS matrix as an external digestion system, the formation of gradients and high biodiversity over microscopically small distances, resource capture and retention, facilitated gene exchange as well as intercellular communication, and enhanced tolerance to antimicrobials. Thus, biofilms belong to the class of collective systems in biology, like forests, beehives, or coral reefs, although the term film addresses only one form of the various manifestations of microbial aggregates. The uncertainty of this term is discussed, and it is acknowledged that it will not likely be replaced soon, but it is recommended to understand these communities in the broader sense of microbial aggregates.
author2 School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
author_facet School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Flemming, Hans-Curt
Baveye, Philippe
Neu, Thomas R.
Stoodley, Paul
Szewzyk, Ulrich
Wingender, Jost
Wuertz, Stefan
format Article
author Flemming, Hans-Curt
Baveye, Philippe
Neu, Thomas R.
Stoodley, Paul
Szewzyk, Ulrich
Wingender, Jost
Wuertz, Stefan
author_sort Flemming, Hans-Curt
title Who put the film in biofilm? The migration of a term from wastewater engineering to medicine and beyond
title_short Who put the film in biofilm? The migration of a term from wastewater engineering to medicine and beyond
title_full Who put the film in biofilm? The migration of a term from wastewater engineering to medicine and beyond
title_fullStr Who put the film in biofilm? The migration of a term from wastewater engineering to medicine and beyond
title_full_unstemmed Who put the film in biofilm? The migration of a term from wastewater engineering to medicine and beyond
title_sort who put the film in biofilm? the migration of a term from wastewater engineering to medicine and beyond
publishDate 2021
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/151966
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