ArticleThe ISME journal2015
Adhesion as a weapon in microbial competition.
Article in The ISME journal, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 95 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
95 citing papers in PubMed.
- Autoinducer 2 as a universal language in microbial consortia: decoding molecular mechanisms, ecological impacts, and application.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- Structural basis of biofilm formation mediated by thebioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- A universal surface functionalization technique to chemically enhance live microbial cells.Molecular systems biology · 2026Article
- Continental-scale drivers of soil microbial extracellular polymeric substances.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Predator-prey dynamics of Vibrio cholerae on chitin suggest an alternative mode of biofilm formation in marine snow conditions.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Quorum sensing regulates a polysaccharide biosynthesis gene to control cell aggregation inISME communications · 2026Article
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- TheJournal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Dissecting the physics of bacterial biofilms with agent-based simulations.Current opinion in solid state & materials science · 2025Article
- The risk of pathogenicity and antibiotic resistance in deep-sea cold seep microorganisms.mSystems · 2025Article
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- Dynamics of gut colonization by commensal and pathogenic bacteria that attach to the intestinal epithelium.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2025Article
- The mitigation of spatial constraint in porous environments enhances biofilm phylogenetic and functional diversity.Microbiome · 2025Article
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- Metabolic interactions shape emergent biofilm structures in a conceptual model of gut mucosal bacterial communities.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2024Article
- Microplastics as carriers of antibiotic resistance genes and pathogens in municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill leachate and soil: a review.Journal of environmental health science & engineering · 2024Review
- Exploring the role and mechanism of potential probiotics in mitigating the shrimp pathogens.Saudi journal of biological sciences · 2024Review
- Divergent molecular strategies drive evolutionary adaptation to competitive fitness in biofilm formation.The ISME journal · 2024Article
- Physicochemical profiles of mixed ruminal microbes in response to surface tension and specific surface area.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2024Article
- The effect of cooperator recognition on competition among clones in spatially structured microbial communities.PloS one · 2024Article
35 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Microbes attach to surfaces and form dense communities known as biofilms, which are central to how microbes live and influence humans. The key defining feature of biofilms is adhesion, whereby cells attach to one another and to surfaces, via attachment factors and extracellular polymers. While adhesion is known to be important for the initial stages of biofilm formation, its function within biofilm communities has not been studied. Here we utilise an individual-based model of microbial groups to study the evolution of adhesion. While adhering to a surface can enable cells to remain in a biofilm, consideration of within-biofilm competition reveals a potential cost to adhesion: immobility. Highly adhesive cells that are resistant to movement face being buried and starved at the base of the biofilm. However, we find that when growth occurs at the base of a biofilm, adhesion allows cells to capture substratum territory and force less adhesive, competing cells out of the system. This process may be particularly important when cells grow on a host epithelial surface. We test the predictions of our model using the enteric pathogen Vibrio cholerae, which produces an extracellular matrix important for biofilm formation. Flow cell experiments indicate that matrix-secreting cells are highly adhesive and form expanding clusters that remove non-secreting cells from the population, as predicted by our simulations. Our study shows how simple physical properties, such as adhesion, can be critical to understanding evolution and competition within microbial communities.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.