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This book reviews the current concepts in biofilm formation and its implications in human health and disease. The initial chapters introduce the mechanisms of biofilm formation and its composition. Subsequently, the chapters discuss the role of biofilm in acute and chronic infections. It also explores the pivotal role of both innate and adaptive immunity on the course of biofilm infection. In addition, the book elucidates the bacterial biofilm formation on implantable devices and the current approaches to its treatment and prevention. It analyzes the possible relationship between antimicrobial resistance and biofilm formation. Finally, the book also summarizes the current state-of-the-art therapeutic approaches for preventing and treating biofilms. This book is a useful resource for researchers in the field of microbiology, clinical microbiology, and also medical practitioners.

This book provides essential insights into microbial pathogenesis, host-pathogen interactions, and the anti-microbial drug resistance of various human pathogens on the basis of various model organisms. The initial sections of the book introduce readers to the mechanisms of microbial pathogenesis, host-pathogen interactions, anti-microbial drug resistance, and the dynamics of biofilm formation. Due to the emergence of various microbial resistant strains, it is especially important to understand the prognosis for microbial infections, disease progression profiles, and mechanisms of resistance to antibiotic therapy in order to develop novel therapeutic strategies. In turn, the second part of the book presents a comparative analysis of various animal models to help readers understand microbial pathogenesis, host-pathogen interactions, anti-microbial drug discovery, anti-biofilm therapeutics, and treatment regimes. Given its scope, the book represents a valuable asset formicrobiologists, biotechnologists, medical professionals, drug development researchers, and pharmacologists alike.

This book presents the current state of research on the basic scientific aspects of root canal biofilm biology within a clinically applicable context. Root canal biofilms are complex polymicrobial structures adhering to the root canal surface that are formed by microorganisms invading the pulpal space of teeth, and are associated with persistent root canal infections. Concerted efforts to study root canal biofilms have been made in the past decade, resulting in the publication of observational and experimental studies that detail the morphology and biology of these structures in infected root canals. In addition to confirming that bacteria in root canals do not exist in free-floating planktonic states as previously assumed, this new information on root canal biofilm infections has provided an opportunity to re-evaluate conventional clinical protocols and improve endodontic therapeutic measures.

The aim of this book is to provide readers with a wide overview of the main healthcare-associated infections caused by bacteria and fungi able to grow as biofilm. The recently acquired knowledge on the pivotal role played by biofilm-growing microorganisms in healthcare-related infections has given a new dynamic to detection, prevention and treatment of these infections in patients admitted to both acute care hospitals and long-term care facilities. Clinicians, hygienists and microbiologists will be updated by leading scientists on the state-of-art of biofilm-based infections and on the most innovative strategies for prevention and treatment of these infections, often caused by emerging multidrug-resistant biofilm-growing microorganisms.

The aim of this book is to provide readers with a wide overview of the main healthcare-associated infections caused by bacteria and fungi able to grow as biofilm. The recently acquired knowledge on the pivotal role played by biofilm-growing microorganisms in healthcare-related infections has given a new dynamic to detection, prevention and treatment of these infections in patients admitted to both acute care hospitals and long-term care facilities. Clinicians, hygienists and microbiologists will be updated by leading scientists on the state-of-art of biofilm-based infections and on the most innovative strategies for prevention and treatment of these infections, often caused by emerging multidrug-resistant biofilm-growing microorganisms.

This book provides a survey of recent advances in the development of antibiofilm agents for clinical and environmental applications. The fact that microbes exist in structured communities called biofilms has slowly become accepted within the medical community. We now know that over 80% of all infectious diseases are biofilm-related; however, significant challenges still lie in our ability to diagnose and treat these extremely recalcitrant infections.Written by experts from around the globe, this book offers a valuable resource for medical professionals seeking to treat biofilm-related disease, academic and industry researchers interested in drug discovery and instructors who teach courses on microbial pathogenesis and medical microbiology.

Approximately 60% of all hospital-associated infections, over one million cases per year, are due to biofilms that have formed on indwelling medical devices. Device-related biofilm infections increase hospital stays and add over one billion dollars/year to U.S. hospitalization costs. Since the use and the types of indwelling medical devices commonly used in modern healthcare are continuously expanding, especially with an aging population, the incidence of biofilm infections will also continue to rise. The central problem with microbial biofilm infections of foreign bodies is their propensity to resist clearance by the host immune system and all antimicrobial agents tested to date. In fact, compared to their free floating, planktonic counterparts, microbes within a biofilm are 50 – 500 times more resistant to antimicrobial agents. Therefore, achieving therapeutic and non-lethal dosing regimens within the human host is impossible. The end result is a conversion from an acute infection to one that is persistent, chronic, and recurrent, most often requiring device removal in order to eliminate the infection. This text will describe the major types of device-related infections, and will explain the host, pathogen, and the unique properties of their interactions in order to gain a better understanding of these recalcitrant infections.

Throughout the biological world, bacteria thrive predominantly in surface-attached, matrix-enclosed, multicellular communities or biofilms, as opposed to isolated planktonic cells. This choice of lifestyle is not trivial, as it involves major shifts in the use of genetic information and cellular energy, and has profound consequences for bacterial physiology and survival. Growth within a biofilm can thwart immune function and antibiotic therapy and thereby complicate the treatment of infectious diseases, especially chronic and foreign device-associated infections. Modern studies of many important biofilms have advanced well beyond the descriptive stage, and have begun to provide molecular details of the structural, biochemical, and genetic processes that drive biofilm formation and its dispersion. There is much diversity in the details of biofilm development among various species, but there are also commonalities. In most species, environmental and nutritional conditions greatly influence biofilm development. Similar kinds of adhesive molecules often promote biofilm formation in diverse species. Signaling and regulatory processes that drive biofilm development are often conserved, especially among related bacteria. Knowledge of such processes holds great promise for efforts to control biofilm growth and combat biofilm-associated infections. This volume focuses on the biology of biofilms that affect human disease, although it is by no means comprehensive. It opens with chapters that provide the reader with current perspectives on biofilm development, physiology, environmental, and regulatory effects, the role of quorum sensing, and resistance/phenotypic persistence to antimicrobial agents during biofilm growth.

In the well-watered groves of academe, most of us are content to gather worshipful students and technicians in a shady nook to contemplate the eternal verities and to plan extravagant feasts to celebrate our contributions to “knowledge” and to the gradual improvement of the human condition. As one convocation follows another, and as our funding agencies pump billions of dollars into incremental research that?lls every possible pigeon-hole in which a gene makes a protein, a small number of intellectual athletes seize a pivotal concept and plunge into the real world. It is this small band of nimble and impossibly brave intellectual halfbackswho win gamesin the real world, and this book is the result of the drive and intellectual athleticism of its editor and several of her contributors. Bacteria affect humans more than any other life forms with which we share the blue planet, but our understandingof these invisible companionshas developed in a staggering pattern, crippled by our panic and consequent shifts of emphasis. When our race was threatened by epidemic diseases, we visualized bacteria as swarms of potentially lethal planktoniccells from which we must remain isolated by sanitation and which we had to kill by immunization and chemical antibacterial compounds. By the time this overriding threat had been obviated, we began to examine na- ral and pathogenic ecosystems by direct methods, and we were surprised to?nd that planktonic bacteria are comparatively rare and that most prokaryotes grow in matrix-enclosedbio?lms.

This book details the widely accepted hypothesis that the majority of bacteria in virtually all ecosystems grow in matrix-enclosed biofilms. The author, who proposed this biofilm hypothesis, uses direct evidence from microscopy and from molecular techniques, presenting cogent reasons for moving beyond conventional culture methods that dominated microbiology throughout the last century. Bacteria grow predominantly in biofilms in all natural, engineered, and pathogenic ecosystems, and this book provides a solid basis for the understanding of bacterial processes in environmental, industrial, agricultural, dental and medical microbiology. Using a unique'ecological'perspective, the author explores the commensal and pathogenic colonization of human organ systems.