Dual-chamber microfluidic platform to study biofilm susceptibility in air-liquid and liquid-liquid interfaces

Biofilm is a community of microorganisms embedded and growing in a self-produced matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) which are notoriously difficult to eradicate and control and, consequently, cause chronic, nosocomial, and device-related infections. Conventional devices have been developed to culture biofilms and to test the minimum biofilm eradication
concentration (MBEC) of antibiotics. Microfluidic techniques have recently gained attention in biofilm research due to their ability to provide precise environmental control, high-throughput observation and low-cost fabrication. However, these models usually use mono-interfaces and disregard the diversity of interfaces that biofilms thrived on. For example, a biofilm that caused lung infection should be modelled as biofilm developed on an air-liquid interface (ALI) and
biofilm that leads to urinary tract infections should be considered as liquid-liquid interface (LLI) model biofilm. Although several studies have been specifically designed to investigate the influence of interfaces on the biofilm formation of certain bacteria strains, they are unable to provide high throughput testing. Thus, to obtain more realistic targeted delivery approaches, a biofilm should be differentiated by the model interface. To overcome these challenges, a reusable microfluidic dual chamber system with an interchangeable membrane was developed to render multiple interfaces for biofilm culture. The study aims to investigate the variance among the biofilms developed on these different interfaces and to also study the influence of hydrodynamic condition on biofilm formation and antibiotic susceptibility.