A new BiofilmChip device for testing biofilm formation and antibiotic susceptibility

Abstract

Biofilms; Microbiologia clínica; Diagnòstic de malalties infeccioses

Biofilms; Microbiología clínica; Diagnóstico de enfermedades infecciosas

Biofilms; Clinical microbiology; Infectious-disease diagnostics

Currently, three major circumstances threaten the management of bacterial infections: increasing antimicrobial resistance, expansion of chronic biofilm-associated infections, and lack of an appropriate approach to treat them. To date, the development of accelerated drug susceptibility testing of biofilms and of new antibiofouling systems has not been achieved despite the availability of different methodologies. There is a need for easy-to-use methods of testing the antibiotic susceptibility of bacteria that form biofilms and for screening new possible antibiofilm strategies. Herein, we present a microfluidic platform with an integrated interdigitated sensor (BiofilmChip). This new device allows an irreversible and homogeneous attachment of bacterial cells of clinical origin, even directly from clinical specimens, and the biofilms grown can be monitored by confocal microscopy or electrical impedance spectroscopy. The device proved to be suitable to study polymicrobial communities, as well as to measure the effect of antimicrobials on biofilms without introducing disturbances due to manipulation, thus better mimicking real-life clinical situations. Our results demonstrate that BiofilmChip is a straightforward tool for antimicrobial biofilm susceptibility testing that could be easily implemented in routine clinical laboratories.

We thank Prof. Tim Tolker-Nielsen from Costerton Biofilm Center, University of Copenhagen, for providing the P. aeruginosa MK171 strain. This work was supported in part through grants to ET from the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (BIO2015-63557-R and RTI2018-098573-B-100) (MINECO/FEDER), the Generalitat de Catalunya (2017 SGR1079 and CERCA program), and the Spanish Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and La Caixa Foundation. The authors want to acknowledge MicroFabSpace and the Microscopy Characterization Facility, Unit 7 of ICTS “NANBIOSIS” from CIBER-BBN at IBEC. This research was supported by the Networking Biomedical Research Center (CIBER), Spain. CIBER is an initiative funded by the VI National R&D&i Plan 2008–2011, Iniciativa Ingenio 2010, Consolider Program, CIBER Actions, and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (RD16/0006/0012), with the support of the European Regional Development Fund. This work was funded by the CERCA Programme and by the Commission for Universities and Research of the Department of Innovation, Universities, and Enterprise of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2017 SGR 1079). This work was developed in the context of AdvanceCat and Base3D with the support of ACCIÓ (Catalonia Trade and Investment; Generalitat de Catalunya) under the Catalonian ERDF operational program (European Regional Development Fund) 2014–2020. This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) through the projects MINDS (Proyectos I+D Excelencia + FEDER): TEC2015-70104-P, CTQ2016-75870-P.