Team:Groningen/Modeling

From 2010.igem.org

The modelling team is developing a mathematical model which describes the growth of biofilms. Furthermore we are researching how strong the biofilm is, how fast it grows and other parameters needed fot the model.

In the literature we found models that described biofilms by a so called differential discrete cellular automaton approach. This means that we are using both discrete and continous models to determine what is happening in our biofim. Important processes to take into account are convection, diffusion, biofilm growth, substrate consumption and biomass production. Our current approach is mainly based on the following articles:

Picioreanu C, van Loosdrecht MC, Heijnen JJ. A new combined differential-discrete cellular automaton approach for biofilm modeling: application for growth in gel beads, Biotechnology Bioengineering 1998 Mar 20;57(6):718-31. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10099251

Picioreanu C, van Loosdrecht MC, Heijnen JJ. Mathematical modeling of biofilm structure with a hybrid differential-discrete cellular automaton approach, Biotechnology Bioengineering 1998 Apr 5;58(1):101-16. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10099266

van Loosdrecht MC, Heijnen JJ, Eberl H, Kreft J, Picioreanu C. Mathematical modelling of biofilm structures, Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek, 2002 Aug;81(1-4):245-56. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12448723

A useful article on characteristics of biofilms of several bacteria including Bacillus subtilis is: López D, Vlamakis H, Kolter R. Biofilms, Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology 2010 Jul 1;2(7):a000398. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20519345