Formation and treatment of biofilms present a great challenge for health care and industry. About 80% of human infections are associated with biofilms including biomaterial centered infections, like infections of prosthetic heart valves, central venous catheters, or urinary catheters. Additionally, biofilms can cause food and drinking water contamination. Biofilm research focusses on application of experimental biofilm models to study initial adherence processes, to optimize physico-chemical properties of medical materials for reducing interactions between materials and bacteria, and to investigate biofilm treatment under controlled conditions. Exploring new antimicrobial strategies plays a key role in a variety of scientific disciplines, like medical material research, anti-infectious research, plant engineering, or wastewater treatment. Although a variety of biofilm models exist, there is a lack of standardization for experimental protocols, and designing experimental setups remains a challenge. In this study, a number of experimental parameters critical for material research have been tested that influence formation and stability of an experimental biofilm using the non-pathogenic model strain of Pseudomonas fluorescens. These parameters include experimental time frame, nutrient supply, inoculum concentration, static and dynamic cultivation conditions, material properties, and sample treatment during staining for visualization of the biofilm. It was shown, that all tested parameters critically influence the experimental biofilm formation process. The results obtained in this study shall support material researchers in designing experimental biofilm setups.

生物膜的形成和处理对医疗保健和工业提出了巨大的挑战。约 80% 的人类感染与生物膜有关，包括以生物材料为中心的感染，如人工心脏瓣膜、中心静脉导管或导尿管的感染。此外，生物膜还会导致食品和饮用水污染。生物膜研究侧重于应用实验生物膜模型来研究初始粘附过程，优化医用材料的理化性质以减少材料与细菌之间的相互作用，并研究受控条件下的生物膜治疗。探索新的抗菌策略在医疗材料研究、抗感染研究、植物工程或废水处理等多种科学学科中发挥着关键作用。尽管存在多种生物膜模型，但实验方案缺乏标准化，并且设计实验装置仍然是一个挑战。在这项研究中，使用荧光假单胞菌的非致病性模型菌株测试了许多对材料研究至关重要的实验参数，这些参数影响实验生物膜的形成和稳定性。这些参数包括实验时间范围、营养供应、接种浓度、静态和动态培养条件、材料特性以及生物膜可视化染色过程中的样品处理。结果表明，所有测试参数都严重影响实验生物膜形成过程。本研究获得的结果将支持材料研究人员设计实验生物膜装置。