Pathogens electrogenicity as a tool for in-situ metabolic activity monitoring and drug assessment in biofilms

Waheed Miran; Divya Naradasu; Akihiro Okamoto

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.102068

Pathogens electrogenicity as a tool for in-situ metabolic activity monitoring and drug assessment in biofilms

iScience. 2021 Jan 19;24(2):102068. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102068. eCollection 2021 Feb 19.

Authors

Waheed Miran¹, Divya Naradasu¹, Akihiro Okamoto^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan.
² Graduate School of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, Hokkaido University, North 13 West 8, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-8628, Japan.

Abstract

Concerns regarding increased antibiotic resistance arising from the emergent properties of biofilms have spurred interest in the discovery of novel antibiotic agents and techniques to directly estimate metabolic activity in biofilms. Although a number of methods have been developed to quantify biofilm formation, real-time quantitative assessment of metabolic activity in label-free biofilms remains a challenge. Production of electrical current via extracellular electron transport (EET) has recently been found in pathogens and appears to correlate with their metabolic activity. Accordingly, monitoring the production of electrical currents as an indicator of cellular metabolic activity in biofilms represents a new direction for research aiming to assess and screen the effects of antimicrobials on biofilm activity. In this article, we reviewed EET-capable pathogens and the methods to monitor biofilm activity to discuss advantages of using the capability of pathogens to produce electrical currents and effective combination of these methods. Moreover, we discussed EET mechanisms by pathogenic and environmental bacteria and open questions for the physiological roles of EET in pathogen's biofilm. The present limitations and possible future directions of in situ biofilm metabolic activity assessment for large-scale screening of antimicrobials are also discussed.

Keywords: Multi-drug resistant organisms; bioelectronics; cell biology; microbiofilms.

Publication types

Review