Bile Salt-induced Biofilm Formation in Enteric Pathogens: Techniques for Identification and Quantification

The overall goal of this biofilm formation and assessment protocol is to determine the ability of enteric bacterial pathogens to form a biofilm, especially in conditions that mimic gastrointestinal transit and exposure to bile salts. The methods can help answer key questions in the bacterial pathogenesis field, such as the ability of enteric pathogens to survive the harsh bile salt conditions of the gastrointestinal tract. The main advantage of the techniques is that the combined results from the three assays support in-depth characterization of biofilm formation in response to bile salt exposure for each pathogen.

We first had the idea for the combined methods, given the need to fully quantify bile salt-induced biofilm formation in Shigella flexneri. Generally, individuals new to this method will struggle because aspects of the assay can limit reproducibility. So please pay attention to the critical steps, to ensure reproducibility.