Influence of growth rate on susceptibility to antimicrobial agents: modification of the cell envelope and batch and continuous culture studies

Application of Scanning Electron Microscopy for the Morphological Study of Biofilm in Medical Devices

“…The failure of antimicrobial agents to treat biofilms has been associated with a variety of mechanisms (Brown et al, 1990):…”

Biofilm and Urogenital Infections

“…The use of antibiotics is currently one of the possibilities of the prevention of biofilm formation. However, even in the presence of antibiotics bacteria can adhere, colonize and survive on implanted medical devices as has been shown for urinary catheters and ureteral stent surfaces in vitro and in vivo [17,18,19]. The problem in conventional clinical microbiology is how to treat patients in the best way when choosing antibiotics is based on bacterial cultures derived from planktonic bacterial cells which differ very much from bacteria in the biofilm mode.…”

“…This can stand behind the clinical failure rate of treating chronic bacterial infection. The failure of antimicrobial agents to treat biofilms has been associated with a variety of mechanisms (4) [18,19,20,21,22,23,24]. One mechanism of biofilm resistance to antimicrobial agents is the failure of an agent to penetrate the full depth of the biofilm (extrinsic resistance).…”

Plaque Biofilm

“…1999) One important mechanism of resistance appears to be the slower rate of growth of bacterial species in biofilms,which makes them less susceptible to many, but not all, antibiotics (Ashby MJ et al, 1994;Brooun A et al, 2000;Costerton et al, 1999). It has been shown in many studies that the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics, biocides or preservatives is affected by their nutritional status, growth rate, temperature, pH and prior exposure to ineffective concentrations of antimicrobial agents (Brown and Williams 1985;Brown et al, 1990;Williams P.1988). Variations in any of these parameters can lead to a varied response to antibiotics within a biofilm.…”