Adaptive and Survival Strategies of Microorganisms in Biofilms

Suny At Buffalo, Amherst NY

Investigators

Abstract

A collaborative research program will study adaptive and survival strategies of microorganisms in biofilms. The collaborating team includes researchers at the University of Buffalo and at Malmo University (Sweden). The program has three objectives: as a clear test of the induction hypothesis with a well-studied system, to identify the general and acid-specific stress proteins induced in S. mutans H7 during the early stages of the acid tolerance response and to initiate studies on their function; to establish the relationships between the acid tolerance and starvation responses in S. mutans, as functions of the surface energies of the substrata to which they have attached as biofilms; and to expand the study of the induction of stress proteins to include the response of S. mutnas to dynamic shear stresses that characterize relevant microbial biofilm environments.