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FLO11-Based Model for Air-Liquid Interfacial Biofilm Formation by Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali Agrarie e Biotecnologie Agroalimentari, Sezione di Microbiologia Generale ed Applicata, Università di Sassari, Viale Italia 39, 07100 Sassari, Italy,¹ Department of Food Science and Technology, Wiegand Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331-6602²

Received 9 June 2004/ Accepted 27 December 2004

Sardinian wine strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae used to make sherry-like wines form a biofilm at the air-liquid interface at the end of ethanolic fermentation, when grape sugar is depleted and further growth becomes dependent on access to oxygen. Here, we show that FLO11, which encodes a hydrophobic cell wall glycoprotein, is required for the air-liquid interfacial biofilm and that biofilm cells have a buoyant density greater than the suspending medium. We propose a model for biofilm formation based on an increase in cell surface hydrophobicity occurring at the diauxic shift. This increase leads to formation of multicellular aggregates that effectively entrap carbon dioxide, providing buoyancy. A visible biofilm appears when a sufficient number of hydrophobic cell aggregates are carried to and grow on the liquid surface.

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