Dynamic monitoring of Staphylococcus epidermidis biofilm formation using a microfluidic approach
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The crystal violet (CV) assay was the standard for quantifying biofilm biomass but is limited by its inability to replicate dynamic environmental conditions. In contrast, microfluidic flow cells provided a promising alternative, enabling real-time monitoring of biofilm development under controlled and continuously changing environments. This study evaluated the performance of different methods for assessing biofilm formation under various growth conditions, using Staphylococcus epidermidis as a model bacterium. S. epidermidis biofilms are particularly challenging in biomaterial-related infections, highlighting the need for accurate methods to assess biofilm dynamics in such contexts. Biofilm formation was evaluated using the CV assay (adapted from ISO 4768) and single-use polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic flow cells. These flow cells featured dual identical channels, which were individually operated by syringe pumps. In the microfluidic system, inoculum of varying concentrations and types were tested with a standard culture medium. This medium was either supplemented with 0.5% glucose or diluted 1/5 to assess its effects on biofilm development. The CV assays showed similar biofilm growth in both standard and glucose-supplemented media. However, the microfluidic system revealed that glucose was detrimental to biofilm formation. The diluted medium condition impacted biofilm formation significantly with the CV assay but had minimal effect in microfluidics. Biofilm-like structures were consistently detected using microfluidics, even under diluted or low-inoculum conditions, whereas the CV assay failed to observe them. The microfluidic approach enabled real-time biofilm monitoring, offering greater sensitivity to medium composition and inoculum effects, while the CV assay reflects static conditions where environmental changes are mediated by biofilm itself. This study highlights the importance of adopting a dynamic approach to studying biofilm growth mechanisms. The microfluidic approach presented in this study was developed for blood bank applications to contribute to advancements in knowledge on transfusion safety in hospital settings.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".