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The influence of surface topographyon bacterial adhesion has beeninvestigated using a range of spatially organized microtopographicsurface patterns generated on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and threeunrelated bacterial strains. The results presented indicate that bacterialcells actively choose their position to settle, differentiating upperand lower areas in all the surface patterns evaluated. Such selectiveadhesion depends on the cells’ size and shape relative to thedimensions of the surface topographical features and surface hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity.Moreover, it was found that all the topographies investigated provokea significant reduction in bacterial adhesion (30–45%) relativeto the smooth control samples regardless of surface hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity.This remarkable finding constitutes a general phenomenon, occurringin both Gram-positive and Gram-negative cells with spherical or rodshape, dictated by only surface topography. Collectively, the resultspresented in this study demonstrate that spatially organized microtopographicsurface patterns represent a promising approach to controlling/inhibitingbacterial adhesion and biofilm formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]