ABSTRACT

Bacteria form biofilms by attaching to materials. The formed biofilm has various influences on daily life and industry, positively or negatively. Therefore, the biofilm should be observed and controlled in an appropriate manner. There are numerous developed methods to evaluate biofilms. However, many of them have been not appropriate from the viewpoint of industrial application since they are difficult to be handled and the associated pieces of equipment are very expensive. Therefore, in this study, the authors focused on staining methods to evaluate biofilms. Crystal violet is well known to stain negatively charged parts of polymeric substances, such as polysaccharides and other polar polymers. Thus, the amount and contents were expected to evaluate reliably. In this study, the authors compared Raman shifts and colour measurements for biofilms formed on four metallic materials by Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus epidermidis. It could be confirmed that staining by crystal violet could predict the amounts of biofilms, and the contents ratio (particularly the contents of polysaccharides) to some extent.

摘要

细菌通过附着在材料上形成生物膜。形成的生物膜对日常生活和工业有积极或消极的影响。因此，应以适当的方式观察和控制生物膜。有许多开发的方法来评估生物膜。然而，从工业应用的角度来看，它们中的许多是不合适的，因为它们难以处理并且相关的设备非常昂贵。因此，在这项研究中，作者专注于评估生物膜的染色方法。众所周知，结晶紫可以染色聚合物的带负电部分，例如多糖和其他极性聚合物。因此，预计数量和含量可以可靠地评估。在这项研究中，大肠杆菌和表皮葡萄球菌。可以证实，结晶紫染色可以在一定程度上预测生物膜的数量，以及含量比（尤其是多糖的含量）。