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Volume 155, Issue 3

Is gas-discharge plasma a new solution to the old problem of biofilm inactivation? Free

Abstract

Conventional disinfection and sterilization methods are often ineffective with biofilms, which are ubiquitous, hard-to-destroy microbial communities embedded in a matrix mostly composed of exopolysaccharides. The use of gas-discharge plasmas represents an alternative method, since plasmas contain a mixture of charged particles, chemically reactive species and UV radiation, whose decontamination potential for free-living, planktonic micro-organisms is well established. In this study, biofilms were produced using , a Gram-negative bacterium present in soil and water and used in this study as a model organism. Biofilms were subjected to an atmospheric pressure plasma jet for different exposure times. Our results show that 99.6 % of culturable cells are inactivated after a 5 min treatment. The survivor curve shows double-slope kinetics with a rapid initial decline in c.f.u. ml followed by a much slower decline with values that are longer than those for the inactivation of planktonic organisms, suggesting a more complex inactivation mechanism for biofilms. DNA and ATP determinations together with atomic force microscopy and fluorescence microscopy show that non-culturable cells are still alive after short plasma exposure times. These results indicate the potential of plasma for biofilm inactivation and suggest that cells go through a sequential set of physiological and morphological changes before inactivation.

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Keyword(s): AFM, atomic force microscopy and D value, decimal reduction time value
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2009-03-01
2025-12-11

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Is gas-discharge plasma a new solution to the old problem of biofilm inactivation?
Microbiology 155, 724 (2009); https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.021501-0
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.021501-0
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.021501-0
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