Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. What are biofilms ?
Q2. Why we need to target biofilm ?
Q3. What is the consequence of the biofilm mode of growth to hosts ?
Q4. What are anti-biofilm agents ?
Q5. Is there any web resource of anti-biofilm agents ?
Q6. What is aBiofilm resource ?
Q7. What are the salient features of aBiofilm resource ?
Q8. How many anti-biofilm agents available in the database ?
Q9. Can user get the brief mechanistic details of biofilm and its targeting on webserver ?
Q10. What type of analyses is provided in aBiofilm resource ?
Q11. What is aBiofilm Predictor ?
Q12. Is this resource freely available ?
Q13. To whom aBiofilm is important ?
What are biofilms ?
Biofilm mode of growth is an alternative lifestyle in which microbes adopt multicellular form to facilitate and enhance the lifespan in diverse environmental niche (Kostakioti, Hadjifrangiskou et al. 2013). They are surface attached communities of microbes that are ubiquitous in nature and may be mono-species or multi-species.
Why we need to target biofilm ?
Biofilm mode of growth among bacteria is harmful to eukaryotes and difficult to treat/eradicate through antibiotics.
What is the consequence of the biofilm mode of growth to hosts ?
Biofilms are considered as a consortium of microbes with monospecies or polyspecies colonization. In biofilm mode, the bacteria exhibits 10-1000 folds increase in antibiotic resistance due to their specialized features like efflux pumps, modifying enzymes, evading immune system and target mutations (Walsh 2000, Stewart and Costerton 2001, Roilides, Simitsopoulou et al. 2015).
Q4. What are anti-biofilm agents ?
Agents that are capable of impede biofilm growth via any means comes under the category of anti-biofilm agents.
Q5. Is there any web resource of anti-biofilm agents ?
There is only one resource available that comprehends the anti-biofilm potential of anti-microbial peptides named BaAMPs with 162 anti-microbial peptides.
Q6.What is aBiofilm resource ?>
aBiofilm resource is complete resource of anti-biofilm agents. It contains data from ant-biofilm agents (chemicals, phytochemicals, peptides, protein, enzymes, phages, antibiotics, etc.), predictor, and analyses.
Q7. What are the salient features of aBiofilm resource ?
aBiofilm resource contains database with ant-biofilm agents with chemical, biological, and structural details.The QSAR based predictor to predict anti-biofilm potential of any compound, and various analyses to help users for extracting useful information about biofilm quenchers reported in literature like mode of action, diversity of agents, stages and group of organisms targeted using CIRCOS, CYTOSCAPE, ChesMapper softwares.
Q8. How many anti-biofilm agents available in the database ?
aBiofilm database contains 5027 entries from 526 articles (1988-2017) belonged to 193 different journals.
Q9. Can user get the brief mechanistic details of biofilm and its targeting on webserver ?
aBiofilm resource comprised of mechanistic details of the biofilm developmental stages and brief overview about biofilm field.
Q10. What type of analyses is provided in aBiofilm resource ?
We are providing, three different analyses, which will assist the user for retrieving important information about biofilm targeting agents. The analyses includes interaction between stages of biofilm of particular organism targeted with specific chemicals. These analyses is accomplished using important softwares like CIRCOS, CYTOSCAPE, and ChesMapper.
Q11. What is aBiofilm Predictor ?
aBiofilm database contains Quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) based predictor, based on qualitative data. It will help the user to get the anti-biofilm potential of unknown compound(s). The models integrated on predictor is having an accuracy and Matthews' correlation coefficient (MCC) of 79.18% of 0.58 respectively.
Q12. Is this resource freely available ?
Yes, this database is freely available at our website http://bioinfo.imtech.res.in/manojk/abiofilm/
Q12. To whom aBiofilm is important ?
It would be very helpful for researchers working in the field of microbiology, biochemistry, biotechnology, socio microbiology, medical microbiology, quorum sensing, biofilm science and engineering, their related therapeutics, etc.