The slippery business of slime control

Abstract

What do that scummy feeling on your teeth in the morning, corrosion of oil and gas pipelines, and the slick film building up on the mystery food in the back of your refrigerator have in common? They are all manifestations of microbial slime, which is the result of bacteria growing as a community on a surface held together in an extracellular matrix. These are more commonly referred to as biofilms, which we constantly encounter in everyday life. Bacteria seem to favour growing as biofilms because this provides a range of distinct advantages, including better access to nutrients that partition to surfaces, protection from external stresses such as UV and inhibitors produced by competing microorganisms, and resistance to protozoan grazing that is otherwise one of the main mortality factors for bacteria.