Biofilms: Unicellular Assemblies or Multicellular Organisms?

Biofilms are a unique lifestyle of grouped microbial cells closely encased in a self-produced matrix, exhibiting features of multicellular organisms that surpass single cells. This opens the debate: Should biofilms be viewed as unicellular assemblies or multicellular entities? Addressing this question needs basic knowledge of biofilm composition and structure but remaining the bottleneck: 1) current understanding is anchored in a single-cell-centric view and believes biofilms a sessile stage of unicellular microorganisms; 2) usual microscopes fail to untangle their complexity due to diffraction limit. This project will develop a non-standard usage of expandable hydrogels to get over diffraction limit and attain unprecedented structural details of biofilms. The study aims to transform current views on biofilm lifestyle from our macroscopic impressions to microscale world where microbes really live, from intercellular events in single cells to extracellular matrix that shapes emergent properties of biofilms. As biofilms essential in natural and man-made ecosystems, this knowledge will pave the way to apply biofilms in industrial, agricultural, and ecological systems, and revolutionize our perception of how organisms evolve from single- to multi-cellular lifestyles on earth.