Real-time assessment of Staphylococcus aureus biofilm disruption mediated by phage-derived proteins

Trabajo presentado en el 1st International Symposium on Antimicrobial Hydrolitic Enzymes, celebrado en Nueva York (Estados Unidos) el 17 y 18 de noviembre de 2016The development of new tools for removing bacterial biofilms is a current focus of research due to the negative impact of these structures on clinical and industrial settings. Bacteriophage-encoded proteins, such as endolysins, virion-associated peptidoglycan hydrolases and exopolysaccharide depolymerases, have been proven to be efficient against these structures (Gutiérrez et al., 2016a). Regarding this, we have recently tested the suitability of the xCELLigence (RTCA) equipment, a non-invasive, label-free, real time monitoring system, based on impedance (CI) recording, for measurement of biofilm formation in Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Streptococcus mutans (Gutiérrez et al., 2016b) . More recently, we decided to assess whether this technique is reliable and accurate enough to be used for rapid screening of anti-biofilm agents against their potential targets. With this aim, we studied the anti-biofilm activity of five phage-derived proteins against S. aureus biofilms. This method allowed defining the minimum concentration needed for removing 50% of the biofilm (minimum biofilm eliminating concentration or MBEC50) for each phage encoded-protein as an indicator of anti-biofilm enzymatic activity.Peer reviewe