\n Exploring the structure of biofilms to identify the factors that affect wrinkling properties\n <\/p>\n
Wrinkles are generally thought of as a bad thing \u2014 in clothes, in fabrics, and even in science. In biology, wrinkly biofilms can disrupt surgeries, water pipes, and ship hulls, and they are notoriously hard to get rid of in any context.<\/p>\n
Krishnan et al. set out to understand why biofilms wrinkle and the mechanism behind this phenomenon.<\/p>\n
\u201cBiofilm wrinkles can have a functional role in different species: for instance, maximizing the surface-to-volume ratio to increase respiration or generating channels to enable nutrient diffusion within the biofilm and allow the bacteria to keep growing,\u201d said author Diana Fusco. \u201cWhether wrinkles, or other architectural features in the biofilm, are the results of evolution is an open and intriguing question.\u201d<\/p>\n
In general, wrinkling is caused when the mass of the film builds up an internal pressure that can\u2019t be released quickly enough. As a result, wrinkles can be affected by internal factors like genetics and external factors like the environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cInterestingly, most of the external factors seem to lead to wrinkle formation only within an optimal range, when the factor is neither too weak, nor too strong,\u201d said Fusco.<\/p>\n
Biofilms play an important role in filtration and bioenergy production, so understanding their complex architecture, including wrinkling, is helpful to mitigating their detriments and optimizing their applications.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile well-studied model species, such as B. subtilis, E. coli, V. cholerae and P. aeruginosa would still be useful for systematic environmental and genetic studies, I think multi-species biofilms are a relatively uncharted territory that holds a lot of research potential to better understand the ecological factors that shape biofilm formation,\u201d said Fusco.<\/p>\n
Source:<\/b> \u201cThe what, when, where, and why of wrinkly morphology in biofilms,\u201d by N. Krishnan, J. Knight, C. Tropini, L. Ruiz Pestana, and D. Fusco, Biophysics Reviews (2025). The article can be accessed at https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1063\/5.0223707 <\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exploring the structure of biofilms to identify the factors that affect wrinkling properties Wrinkles are generally thought of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":82298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[815,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-82297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-genetics","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114895092802985655","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}