Beneficial Biofilms: a Minireview of Strategies To Enhance Biofilm Formation for Biotechnological Applications

The capacity of bacteria to form biofilms is an important trait for their survival and persistence. Biofilms occur naturally in soil and aquatic environments, are associated with animals ranging from insects to humans, and are also found in built environments. They are typically encountered as a challenge in health care, food industry, and water supply ecosystems. In contrast, they are known to play a key role in the industrial production of commercially valuable products, environmental remediation processes, and microbe-catalyzed electrochemical systems for energy and resource recovery from wastewater. While there are many recent articles on biofilm control and removal, review articles on promoting biofilm growth for biotechnological applications are unavailable. Biofilm formation is a tightly regulated response to perturbations in the external environment. The multistage process, mediated by an assortment of proteins and signaling systems, involves the attachment of bacterial cells to a surface followed by their aggregation in a matrix of extracellular polymeric substances. Biofilms can be promoted by altering the external environment in a controlled manner, supplying molecules that trigger the aggregation of cells and engineering genes associated with biofilm development. This minireview synthesizes findings from studies that have described such strategies and highlights areas needing research attention.