Work

A model, mixed-species urinary catheter biofilm derived from spinal cord injury patients

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Complex multispecies biofilms consistently colonise the interior of indwelling urinary catheters, causing persistent asymptomatic bacteriuria and frequent symptomatic episodes in long-term catheterized individuals. Simple single-species models often fail to capture the complexities of mixed-species interactions, leading to limited conclusions about microbial behaviour and treatment efficacy. Additionally, using lab-based organisms can obscure the genomic diversity found in real-world infections. The primary objective of this study was to establish a stable and reproducible in vitro biofilm model derived from the multi-species clinical flora associated with catheter-related infections, reflecting the dynamics of in vivo infections. Biofilm samples from clinical catheters of spinal cord injury (SCI) participants were used to establish polymicrobial macro-fluidic models within catheters. Metagenomic techniques using short-read Illumina and long-read Oxford Nanopore sequencing was used to assess the community composition, produce metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), analyse strain-level phylogeny diversity and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) of isolates. Antibiotic resistance tests using our models highlighted the drastic differences between planktonic bacteria, single-species, and multispecies biofilms. In silico analysis of antibiotic resistance further revealed a high number of varied resistance genes present in these communities. The models developed and characterised in this study are expected to facilitate more effective strategies to prevent and treat catheter-associated infections.

Source: Biofilm

DOI: 10.1016/j.bioflm.2025.100332