Biofilms deform soft surfaces and disrupt epithelia
- Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Abstract
During chronic infections and in microbiota, bacteria predominantly colonize their hosts as multicellular structures called biofilms. A common assumption is that biofilms exclusively interact with their hosts biochemically. However, the contributions of mechanics, while being central to the process of biofilm formation, have been overlooked as a factor influencing host physiology. Specifically, how biofilms form on soft, tissue-like materials remains unknown. Here we show that biofilms of the pathogens Vibrio cholerae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa can induce large deformations of soft synthetic hydrogels. Biofilms buildup internal mechanical stress as single cells grow within the elastic matrix. By combining mechanical measurements and mutations in matrix components, we found that biofilms deform by buckling, and that adhesion transmits these forces to their substrates. Finally, we demonstrate that V. cholerae biofilms can generate sufficient mechanical stress to deform and even disrupt soft epithelial cell monolayers, suggesting a mechanical mode of infection.
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Author details
Funding
Swiss National Science Foundation
- Alice Cont
- Tamara Rossy
- Zainebe Al-Mayyah
- Alexandre Persat
Cavaglieri Foundation
- Alice Cont
- Tamara Rossy
- Zainebe Al-Mayyah
- Alexandre Persat
Fondation Beytout
- Alice Cont
- Tamara Rossy
- Zainebe Al-Mayyah
- Alexandre Persat
Gebert Rüf Stiftung
- Alice Cont
- Tamara Rossy
- Zainebe Al-Mayyah
- Alexandre Persat
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2020, Cont et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Biofilms deform soft surfaces and disrupt epithelia
eLife 9:e56533.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.56533
