Polysaccharide Galactan Inhibits Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilm Formation but Protects Pre-formed Biofilms from Antibiotics

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A. V. Grishin^1,2,a* and A. S. Karyagina^1,2,3,b*

¹N. F. Gamaleya National Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, 123098 Moscow, Russia

²All-Russia Research Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, 127550 Moscow, Russia

³A. N. Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119992 Moscow, Russia

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received October 9, 2018; Revised January 21, 2019; Accepted January 28, 2019

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Microorganisms residing within a biofilm become more tolerant to antibiotics and other types of adverse impact, and biofilm formation by pathogenic bacteria is an important problem of current medicine. Polysaccharides that prevent biofilm formation are among the promising candidates to help tackle this problem. Earlier we demonstrated the ability of a potato polysaccharide galactan to inhibit biofilm formation by a Pseudomonas aeruginosa clinical isolate. Here we investigate the effect of potato galactan on P. aeruginosa biofilms in more detail. Microscopic analysis indicated that the galactan did not interfere with the adhesion of bacterial cells to the substrate but prevented the build-up of bacterial biomass. Moreover, the galactan not only inhibited biofilm formation, but partially destroyed pre-formed biofilms. Presumably, this activity of the galactan was due to the excessive aggregation of bacterial cells, which prohibited the formation and maintenance of proper biofilm architecture, or due to some other mechanisms of biofilm structure remodeling. This led to an unexpected effect, i.e., P. aeruginosa biofilms treated with an antibiotic and the galactan retained more viable bacterial cells compared to biofilms treated with the antibiotic alone. Galactan is the first polysaccharide demonstrated to exert such effect on bacterial biofilms.

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KEY WORDS: biofilm, galactan, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, polysaccharide, antibiotics, tolerance

DOI: 10.1134/S0006297919050055

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