How microorganisms use hydrophobicity and what does this mean for human needs?

By A. Krasowska, K. Sigler. Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, 2014

597 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Cell surface hydrophobicity (CSH) plays a crucial role in the attachment to, or detachment from the surfaces. The influence of CSH on adhesion of microorganisms to biotic and abiotic surfaces in medicine as well as in bioremediation and fermentation industry has both negative and positive aspects. Hydrophobic microorganisms cause the damage of surfaces by biofilm formation; on the other hand, they can readily accumulate on organic pollutants and decompose them. Hydrophilic microorganisms also play a considerable role in removing organic wastes from the environment because of their high resistance to hydrophobic chemicals. Despite the many studies on the environmental and metabolic factors affecting CSH, the knowledge of this subject is still scanty and is in most cases limited to observing the impact of hydrophobicity on adhesion, aggregation or flocculation. The future of research seems to lie in finding a way to managing the microbial adhesion process, perhaps by steering cell hydrophobicity.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Ecology, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4bf9e09b15ffdb1be65707f8c0729f4011dfc0ab

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

A. Pacholak
W. Smułek
A. Zdarta
Joseph Heo
M. Bawazir
Sherry Zheng
Le He
Hye-Eun Kim

Citations in the corpus

Immobilization of microbial cells for the biotreatment of wastewater: A review (2018, unknown): “2013; Krasowska and Sigler 2014).”
The Impact of Biosurfactants on Microbial Cell Properties Leading to Hydrocarbon Bioavailability Increase (2018, background): “Also, biodegradable contaminants have then a greater tendency to adhere to the cell wall [61].”
Implication of Surface Properties, Bacterial Motility, and Hydrodynamic Conditions on Bacterial Surface Sensing and Their Initial Adhesion (2021, background): “…of using a thermodynamic approach is its usefulness in explaining generic like-to-like observations, such as bacteria with hydrophobic cell surfaces favor hydrophobic material surfaces while those with hydrophilic cell surfaces favor hydrophilic material surfaces (Krasowska and Sigler, 2014).”