ArticleNPJ biofilms and microbiomes2021
Weaponizing volatiles to inhibit competitor biofilms from a distance.
Article in NPJ biofilms and microbiomes, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Influence of cell-cell distance on the ecology and evolution of microbial communities.The ISME journal · 2026Review
- A multi-strain, biofilm-forming cocktail ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2025Article
- High-resolution 3D spatial distribution of complex microbial colonies revealed by mass spectrometry imaging.Journal of advanced research · 2025Article
- Extreme smells-microbial production of volatile organic compounds at the limits of life.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2025Review
- Volatiles emitted by the entomopathogenic fungusFrontiers in fungal biology · 2025Article
- Interactions between Pseudomonas aeruginosa and six opportunistic pathogens cover a broad spectrum from mutualism to antagonism.Environmental microbiology reports · 2024Article
- RNA-Seq reveals that Pseudomonas aeruginosa mounts growth medium-dependent competitive responses when sensing diffusible cues from Burkholderia cenocepacia.Communications biology · 2024Article
- The Utilization ofMicroorganisms · 2024Article
- Root volatiles manipulate bacterial biofilms.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- How Bacteria Cope with Oxidative Stress Induced by Cadmium: Volatile Communication Is Differentially Perceived among Strains.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Mechanobiology as a tool for addressing the genotype-to-phenotype problem in microbiology.Biophysics reviews · 2023Review
- Isolation and identification of antagonisticFrontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- An open-source computational tool for measuring bacterial biofilm morphology and growth kinetics upon one-sided exposure to an antimicrobial source.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Multi-Strain and -Species Investigation of Volatile Metabolites Emitted from Planktonic and BiofilmMetabolites · 2022Article
- Antifungal Volatile Organic Compounds from Streptomyces setonii WY228 Control Black Spot Disease of Sweet Potato.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2022Article
- Resolving the conflict between antibiotic production and rapid growth by recognition of peptidoglycan of susceptible competitors.Nature communications · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis forms beneficial biofilms that induce plant defences and prevent the growth of pathogens. It is naturally found in the rhizosphere, where microorganisms coexist in an extremely competitive environment, and thus have evolved a diverse arsenal of defence mechanisms. In this work, we found that volatile compounds produced by B. subtilis biofilms inhibited the development of competing biofilm colonies, by reducing extracellular matrix gene expression, both within and across species. This effect was dose-dependent, with the structural defects becoming more pronounced as the number of volatile-producing colonies increased. This inhibition was mostly mediated by organic volatiles, and we identified the active molecules as 3-methyl-1-butanol and 1-butanol. Similar results were obtained with biofilms formed by phylogenetically distinct bacterium sharing the same niche, Escherichia coli, which produced the biofilm-inhibiting 3-methyl-1-butanol and 2-nonanon. The ability of established biofilms to inhibit the development and spreading of new biofilms from afar might be a general mechanism utilized by bacterial biofilms to protect an occupied niche from the invasion of competing bacteria.
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