Browsing by Author "Azevedo, N. F."

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Critical analysis of methods to determine growth, control and analysis of biofilms for potential non-submerged antibiofilm surfaces and coatings
(Elsevier BV, 2024-06) Redfern, J.; Cunliffe, A. J.; Goeres, D. M.; Azevedo, N. F.; Verran, J.
The potential uses for antibiofilm surfaces reach across different sectors with significant resultant economic, societal and health impact. For those interested in using antibiofilm surfaces in the built environment, it is important that efficacy testing methods are relevant, reproducible and standardised where possible, to ensure data outputs are applicable to end-use, and comparable across the literature. Using pre-defined keywords, a review of literature reporting on antimicrobial surfaces (78 articles), within which a potential application was described as non-submerged/non-medical surface or coating with antibiofilm action, was undertaken. The most used methods utilized the growth of biofilm in submerged and static systems. Quantification varied (from most to least commonly used) across colony forming unit counts, non-microscopy fluorescence or spectroscopy, microscopy analysis, direct agar-contact, sequencing, and ELISA. Selection of growth media, microbial species, and incubation temperature also varied. In many cases, definitions of biofilm and attempts to quantify antibiofilm activity were absent or vague. Assessing a surface after biofilm recovery or assessing potential regrowth of a biofilm after initial analysis was almost entirely absent. It is clear the field would benefit from widely agreed and adopted approaches or guidance on how to select and incorporate end-use specific conditions, alongside minimum reporting guidelines may benefit the literature.
Minimum information about a biofilm experiment (MIABiE): Standards for reporting experiments and data on sessile microbial communities living at interfaces
(2014-02) Lourenco, A.; Coenye, T.; Goeres, Darla M.; Donelli, G.; Azevedo, A. S.; Ceri, H.; Coelho, F. L.; Flemming, H.-C.; Juhna, T.; Lopes, S. P.; Oliveira, R.; Oliver, A.; Shirtliff, Mark E.; Sousa, A. M.; Stoodley, Paul; Pereira, M. O.; Azevedo, N. F.
The minimum information about a biofilm experiment (MIABiE) initiative has arisen from the need to find an adequate and scientifically sound way to control the quality of the documentation accompanying the public deposition of biofilm-related data, particularly those obtained using high-throughput devices and techniques. Thereby, the MIABiE consortium has initiated the identification and organization of a set of modules containing the minimum information that needs to be reported to guarantee the interpretability and independent verification of experimental results and their integration with knowledge coming from other fields. MIABiE does not intend to propose specific standards on how biofilms experiments should be performed, because it is acknowledged that specific research questions require specific conditions which may deviate from any standardization. Instead, MIABiE presents guidelines about the data to be recorded and published in order for the procedure and results to be easily and unequivocally interpreted and reproduced. Overall, MIABiE opens up the discussion about a number of particular areas of interest and attempts to achieve a broad consensus about which biofilm data and metadata should be reported in scientific journals in a systematic, rigorous and understandable manner.