摘要
      大多数细菌附着在生物或非生物表面，并嵌入一种称为生物膜的复杂基质中。生物膜的形成在临床环境中尤其令人担忧，因为它阻碍了抗生素治疗感染，因为它促进了抗生素耐药性基因（ARGs）的获取。环境环境现在被认为是推动生物膜形成、生物膜介导的抗生素耐药性发展和传播的关键。几项研究表明，环境生物膜可能是ARGs传播的热点。这些基因可以在可移动遗传元件（MGE）上编码，如偶联和可移动质粒或整合和偶联元件（ICEs）。ARGs可以通过水平基因转移（HGT）快速转移，这已被证明在生物膜中比在浮游培养物中更频繁地发生。生物膜模型是模拟天然生物膜研究ARGs通过HGT传播的有前途的工具。这篇综述综述了生物膜研究的最新进展，以及可视化生物膜中三种主要HGT机制的技术：转化、转导和偶联。
Abstract
Most bacteria attach to biotic or abiotic surfaces and are embedded in a complex matrix which is known as biofilm. Biofilm formation is especially worrisome in clinical settings as it hinders the treatment of infections with antibiotics due to the facilitated acquisition of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Environmental settings are now considered as pivotal for driving biofilm formation, biofilm-mediated antibiotic resistance development and dissemination. Several studies have demonstrated that environmental biofilms can be hotspots for the dissemination of ARGs. These genes can be encoded on mobile genetic elements (MGEs) such as conjugative and mobilizable plasmids or integrative and conjugative elements (ICEs). ARGs can be rapidly transferred through horizontal gene transfer (HGT) which has been shown to occur more frequently in biofilms than in planktonic cultures. Biofilm models are promising tools to mimic natural biofilms to study the dissemination of ARGs via HGT. This review summarizes the state-of-the-art of biofilm studies and the techniques that visualize the three main HGT mechanisms in biofilms: transformation, transduction, and conjugation.

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6382/12/2/328