Figure 3.

with human blood plasma affects S. aureus biofilm streamer formation. (a) We measured the time, T_1/2, until biofilm streamers have grown in situ to occupy half of the channel width at a fixed flow rate of 1.5 ± 0.05 μL/min and at a fixed bacterial cell concentration (optical density at 600 nm = 0.46 ± 0.05). We used three different channels with square cross-sections of different side lengths: 100 μm, 150 μm and 200 μm. Coating the microfluidic channels with human plasma prior to bacterial inoculation leads to rapid accumulation of biomass compared with non-coated channels, independent of the size of the channels. The error bars indicate the range of values from three independent replicates. (b) A typical image used to measure the biofilm thickness.