FIGURE 2.

Variety of omics approaches for elucidating biofilm mechanisms. Two or more conditions (e.g., planktonic vs. biofilm growth, presence or absence of an anti-biofilm agent, different biofilm substrates) are compared in terms of abundance of most biological molecules in the cell; with different methods being used to assess RNAs, transposon-insertions, proteins, and metabolites. Using systems or network biology, data from different modalities can be integrated to perform functional enrichment of genes and pathways required for biofilm formation to generate a holistic mechanistic view of biofilm formation. Tn-Seq, transposon insertion sequencing; Spec, spectroscopy; NMR, nuclear magnetic resonance.