Characterization of Bacterial Membrane Fatty Acid Profiles for Biofilm Cells.

When exposed to environmental stresses, bacteria can modulate its fatty acid composition of membrane phospholipids in order to optimize membrane fluidity. Characterization of bacterial membrane fatty acid profiles is thus an interesting indicator of cellular physiological state. The methodology described here aims to improve the recovering of biofilm cells for the characterization of their fatty acid profiles. The saponification reagent is directly applied on the whole biofilm before the removal of cells from the inert surface. In this way, maximum of the cells and their fatty acids can be recovered from the deepest layers of the biofilm.