Evaluating antibiotics for use in medicine using a poloxamer biofilm model.docVIP

Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials BioMedCentral Research Open Access Evaluating antibiotics for use in medicine using a poloxamer biofilm model Abi L Clutterbuck1,3, Christine A Cochrane2,3, Jayne Dolman3 and Steven L Percival*3 Address: 1University of Wales, Institute of Rural Studies, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales, SY23 3AL, UK, 2University of Liverpool, Department of Veterinary Clinical Science, Division of Equine Studies, Leahurst, Neston, South Wirral, CH64 7TE, UK and 3ConvaTec Wound Therapeutics?, GDC, First Avenue, Deeside Industrial Park, Deeside, CH5 2NU, UK Email: Abi L Clutterbuck - abiclutterbuck@; Christine A Cochrane - C.A.Cochrane@liverpool.ac.uk; Jayne Dolman - Jayne.dolman@; Steven L Percival* - steven.percival@ * Corresponding author Published: 15 February 2007 Received: 13 December 2006 Accepted: 15 February 2007 Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials 2007, 6:2 doi:10.1186/1476-0711-6-2 This article is available from: /content/6/1/2 ? 2007 Clutterbuck et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Wound infections, due to biofilms, are a constant problem because of their recalcitrant nature towards antibiotics. Appropriate antibiotic selection for the treatment of these biofilm infections is important. The traditional in vitro disc diffusion method for antibiotic selection uses bacterial cultures grown on agar plates. However, the form of bacterial growth on agar is not representative of how bacteria grow in wounds and other tissue sites as here bacteria grow naturally in a biofilm. The aim of this research was to test a more appropriate method for testing antimicrobial efficacy on biofilms and compare with the