Figure 2.

Overview of phage advantages as anti-biofilm agents in comparison to antibiotics. Bacteria are presented primarily as pink circles and extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) is represented as a blue background. Toward the upper left is a single, lysing, phage-infected bacterium, presented as a gray circle. Arrows emanating from that phage-infected bacterium represent free phages that have been produced, released, and which otherwise are diffusing towards neighboring phage-sensitive bacteria. The loss of blue background, as seen towards the upper-left of the figure, represents the action of EPS depolymerase. These depolymerase enzymes are displayed by phage virions and/or are released locally upon lysis from phage-infected bacteria. Callouts describe properties of obligately lytic phages versus antibiotics as anti-biofilm agents. See Table 3 for additional discussion of these properties.