BioScience Laboratories, Inc. Biofilm Testing Capabilities - Nelson Labs - Bozeman

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BioScience Laboratories, Inc. Biofilm Testing Capabilities

Posted On: Feb 08, 2017

Biofilms are present in a broad range of industrial, environmental, human health, energy production, and agricultural systems. A biofilm is a group of microorganisms that adhere to a surface and generate an extracellular matrix, which can contain extracellular DNA, proteins, and polysaccharides. These cells embedded in biofilms are often physiologically distinct form planktonic cells of the same species. Biofilms contribute to complications for water distribution systems, corrosion, food production or spoilage, and a variety of host infections. Because of this, biofilms present substantial public health concerns and can result in chronic infections, serious long-term health impacts for patients, and significantly increased medical costs.

Rather than existing as single cells in suspension, once bacteria invade a human host, they may produce a biofilm and attach to surfaces, including human tissue or devices placed inside the body, such as artificial joints, dental implants, heart valves and catheters. Antibiotics are usually much less effective against these biofilms. The antimicrobial agent may not penetrate the depth of the biofilm and if an antibiotic agent is encountered, the bacteria may communicate to others to turn on or off genes affecting susceptibility. Furthermore, a biofilm’s ability to thrive under limited nutrient and high stress conditions make them difficult to kill or eliminate from surfaces. These difficulties lend themselves to necessitate the use of specialized methods for growth, prevention, and efficacy or removal evaluations.

BioScience and Biofilms: What do we offer?

BioScience Laboratories, Inc. provides services for evaluating product efficacy in the prevention and/or removal of biofilms using in-vitro techniques. The BSLI team offers experience in designing and performing experiments tailored to the needs of each client to quantify biofilm growth and evaluate anti-biofilm treatments specific to industry concerns. Testing capabilities for biofilm evaluation include:

  • CDC Biofilm Reactor protocol, ASTM E2562-12
    • This method is representative of environments where the resulting biofilm exists under high shear conditions in a liquid interface. It is used to model potable water systems, industrial water lines, oral biofilms, toilet bowls, washing machines, and other scenarios where the biofilm is more firmly attached to a surface.
  • Single Tube Method protocol, ASTM E2871-13
    • This method is typically used in conjunction with biofilm grown in the CDC Biofilm Reactor. The method produces quantifiable results for disinfectant efficacy evaluation of treated biofilms, compared to untreated controls in a closed system.
  • MBEC Reactor protocol, ASTM E2799-12
    • This method serves as a high throughput screening assay which evaluates biofilm grown under batch conditions. The design allows for simultaneous testing of multiple disinfectants or one disinfectant with multiple concentrations.
  • Drip Flow Reactor protocol, ASTM E2647-08
    • This method represents a low fluid shear environment with an air-liquid interface, resulting in thicker biofilms. It is used to model wound systems or other medical biofilms on implants or devices.
  • Colony Biofilm Method Standard Operating Procedures
    • This methodology evaluates colony biofilms grown in a zero-shear environment and allows quantification of cells challenged with solid test materials. This static biofilm model is useful for both small-scale and large-scale studies, however does not generate a relatively mature biofilm.
  • Biofilm testing in conjunction with tissue models
    • BSLI has experience in the evaluation of irritation or potential inflammatory response using various tissue models exposed to biofilm, including dermal, ocular, oral and vaginal tissues.

Client testing needs are often dependent upon qualitative characteristics of biofilms, such as population density, taxonomic diversity, thickness, composition, consistency and qualities of the biofilm matrix produced, which are controlled by the physicochemical environment in which the biofilm exists. For each of these presented methodologies, testing may be customized to accommodate a variety of microorganisms (single-species and multi-species biofilms), growth conditions, product or material types, and sampling techniques to evaluate the efficacy of chemical constituents against biofilms.

The future for biofilm evaluation: Regulatory Recognition

The development and validation of standardized methods is crucial to achieve regulatory acknowledgment and acceptance of biofilm claims. Currently, the use of the Single Tube Method to evaluate the efficacy of disinfectants against a Pseudomonas biofilm is under consideration by the U.S. EPA as an efficacy method to support the registration of antimicrobial products with biofilm claims. The EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs launched a collaborative study to assess the method’s performance. Preliminary findings suggest this ASTM test method may be accepted by the EPA for product registration.

Written By Danielle Goveia
Study Director in Biofilm Laboratory/QA Specialist
BioScience Laboratories, Inc.