ReviewNPJ biofilms and microbiomes2021
Who put the film in biofilm? The migration of a term from wastewater engineering to medicine and beyond.
Review 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 53 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
53 citing papers in PubMed, 125 citations in OpenAlex.
- Standardized Quantification of Salmonella Biofilms and Evaluation of Antibiotic Antibiofilm Activity.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2027Article
- Biofilm formation and dynamics in the marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Article
- A nutrient bottleneck controls antibiotic efficacy in structured bacterial populations.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Establishing a quantitative link between crystal violet absorbance and biomass in biofilms.MethodsX · 2025Article
- Genetic Determinants Associated With the Biofilm Formation Impairment in Pseudomonas aeruginosa Clinical Isolates.MicrobiologyOpen · 2025Article
- Widespread Distribution of Carbapenem-ResistantAntibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Paradoxical Features Empower Biogenic Silver Nanoparticles.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Synergistic Disruption of Foodborne Pathogen Biofilms by Oregano Essential Oil and Bacteriophage phiLLS: Atomic Force Microscopy Insights.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Antimicrobial resistance in orthopedics: microbial insights, clinical impact, and the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach-a review.Acta orthopaedica · 2025Review
- Antibiotic resistance in Helicobacter pylori: a genetic and physiological perspective.Gut pathogens · 2025Review
- Constituent of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) produced by a range of soil bacteria and fungi.BMC microbiology · 2025Article
- Carbapenem-ResistantAntibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- The mitigation of spatial constraint in porous environments enhances biofilm phylogenetic and functional diversity.Microbiome · 2025Article
- Properties and antibacterial effectiveness of metal-ion doped borate-based bioactive glasses.Future microbiology · 2025Review
- Microbial extracellular polymeric substances in the environment, technology and medicine.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2025Review
- Mixing of Two Microbial Consortia in the Search for Stimulating Chromium Depletion.International journal of microbiology · 2025Article
- The plastisphere and river systems as reservoirs for antibiotic resistant bacteria.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Microplastics and antibiotic resistance genes as rising threats: Their interaction represents an urgent environmental concern.Current research in microbial sciences · 2025Review
- Recombinant protein production inBiofilm · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sessile microorganisms were described as early as the seventeenth century. However, the term biofilm arose only in the 1960s in wastewater treatment research and was adopted later in marine fouling and in medical and dental microbiology. The sessile mode of microbial life was gradually recognized to be predominant on Earth, and the term biofilm became established for the growth of microorganisms in aggregates, frequently associated with interfaces, although many, if not the majority, of them not being continuous "films" in the strict sense. In this sessile form of life, microorganisms live in close proximity in a matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). They share emerging properties, clearly distinct from solitary free floating planktonic microbial cells. Common characteristics include the formation of synergistic microconsortia, using the EPS matrix as an external digestion system, the formation of gradients and high biodiversity over microscopically small distances, resource capture and retention, facilitated gene exchange as well as intercellular communication, and enhanced tolerance to antimicrobials. Thus, biofilms belong to the class of collective systems in biology, like forests, beehives, or coral reefs, although the term film addresses only one form of the various manifestations of microbial aggregates. The uncertainty of this term is discussed, and it is acknowledged that it will not likely be replaced soon, but it is recommended to understand these communities in the broader sense of microbial aggregates.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.