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Effect of ultrasonic irradiation on bacterial biofilms

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to clarify the effect of ultrasonic irradiation on biofilm produced by Staphylococcus epidermidis (S. epidermidis), which causes central venous catheter-related infections.

Materials and methods

Staphylococcus epidermidis (S. epidermidis, ATCC 35984 RP 62A) was used in this study. First, biofilm was prepared from S. epidermidis on the bottom of the upper left well of a 6-well plate. Next, the biofilm was irradiated for 24 h with 1-MHz ultrasound (US) in the continuous wave mode to serve as the US irradiation group. The acoustic power irradiated below the bottom of the well was 3.8 mW. As a control (non-US irradiation group), non-irradiated biofilm on the bottom of a 6-well plate was incubated at 37 °C in an atmosphere of 5.0% CO2. After US irradiation, the bottoms of the wells were stained with 0.1% crystal violet for 60 s. To extract the crystal violet, 99.5% ethanol was added to the wells, and the extracted solutions were measured at an absorbance of 595 nm.

Result

The absorbance of the US irradiation group was significantly less than that of the non-US irradiation group (p < 0.01).

Conclusion

US irradiation can decrease the amount of S. epidermidis biofilm when the duration of US irradiation is sufficiently long even if the acoustic intensity is low.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Research and Development Committee Program of The Japan Society of Ultrasonics in Medicine and JSPS Kakenhi Grant Number 26360543.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Jichi Medical University, 3311-1 Yakushiji, Shimotsuke, Tochigi, Japan

    Harumi Koibuchi, Kazuhiko Kotani, Toshiyuki Yamada & Nobuyuki Taniguchi

  2. Department of Human Health Science, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan

    Yasutomo Fujii

  3. Division of Bacteriology, Department of Infection and Immunity, Jichi Medical University, Shimotsuke, Japan

    Yoshikazu Hirai

  4. Graduate School of Bio-Applications and Systems Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Tokyo, Japan

    Takashi Mochizuki & Kohji Masuda

Authors
  1. Harumi Koibuchi
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  2. Yasutomo Fujii
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  3. Yoshikazu Hirai
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  4. Takashi Mochizuki
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  5. Kohji Masuda
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  6. Kazuhiko Kotani
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  7. Toshiyuki Yamada
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  8. Nobuyuki Taniguchi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Harumi Koibuchi.

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Ethical statement

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest associated with the manuscript.

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Cite this article

Koibuchi, H., Fujii, Y., Hirai, Y. et al. Effect of ultrasonic irradiation on bacterial biofilms. J Med Ultrasonics 45, 25–29 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10396-017-0801-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10396-017-0801-x

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