A Novel Simple In Vitro System Mimicking Natural Environment for the Biofilm Cultivation of Cutaneous Bacteria

Abstract

Biofilms are microbial communities of cells embedded in extracellular matrix, and they are regarded as a major form of the natural and laboratory occurrence of bacteria. Cutaneous microbiota is represented by prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms, which form biofilms in the different niches including the skin surface, glands, and hair follicles. Despite of a large number of in vitro studies dedicated to the biofilms of cutaneous bacteria, the methods used usually do not closely take into account the specific surroundings of certain skin parts. In this study, we introduce a new simple method of biofilm cultivation on the solid keratine/agarose pellets embedded in polyacrylamide gel. In such a model system, we tried to minimize the amount of liquid phase, which makes a model close to a human comedo, and provide a prominent biofilm formation of selected cutaneous bacteria.