Emergent biofilm growth model utilizing autonomous agents
Authored by P D Schreuders, I B Tawney, P Ganeshan
Date Published: 2007
Sponsors:
Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (JIFSAN)
Platforms:
NetLogo
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Flow charts
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
The goal of this work was to develop a model for biofilm growth that
relied on simple cell behaviors and then to observe how different
factors, such as reproduction and nutrient diffusion, affect the biofilm
structure. The biofilm growth model was based on a discrete model with
autonomous agents and was developed using NetLogo, a cross platform
agent-based parallel modeling and simulation environment. Rules were
applied to individual bacteria agents to successfully produce a variety
of 2-D biofilm growth patterns. By altering reproduction and nutrient
diffusion factors to create reproduction and/or differsion limited
conditions, where reproduction is an intrinsic factor and diffusion is
an extrinsic factor, different resultant biofilm structures were
observed. Under both diffusion and reproduction limited conditions, mushroom shapes were observed; if the conditions were neither diffusion
nor reproduction limited, circular shapes were observed, with a blending
of these shapes under either diffusion or reproduction limited
conditions. Since both factors affected the biofilm structure, these
results suggests that a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors
and not either alone, produces the different growth patterns observed in
biofilms. These results are consistent with images obtained using
confocal microscopy of E. coli grown on a glass substrate and stained
with propidium iodide and SYTO-16. Identification of the relationships
between these factors has the potential to improve the modeling of
biofilms and predicting the impact of biofilms on processes as diverse
as biotechnology, water treatment, and food safety.
Tags
Stainless-steel