Comparative study of biofilm formation on biocidal antifouling and fouling-release coatings using next-generation DNA sequencing

Mark Winfield, Adrian Downer, Jennifer Longyear, Marie Dale, Gary Barker

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)
580 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Marine biofouling, the unwanted colonisation of marine organisms on surfaces immersed in seawater, has huge economic and environmental impact in terms of the performance and maintenance requirements of marine structures. Antifouling coatings, either biocide-based or foul-release, are applied to the surface of immersed mobile and stationary structures to retard this colonisation. In this study, the microorganism (bacteria, microalgae and protozoa) that accumulated on different coatings in a time course experiments were identified using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) of both bacterial 16S ribosomal DNA gene (rDNA) and eukaryotic ribosomal DNA internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) amplicons. The resulting sequences were clustered to Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) and assigned taxonomy by comparison to reference databases. Analysis of samples from multiple coatings and time points showed that there were differences in the accumulation of organisms between the various coatings and changes in species composition through time. Strikingly, it was possible to group replicate samples effectively by both coating and time point, indicating that there are fundamental and reproducible differences in the resulting biofilms assemblages. Such approaches will allow us to evaluate the efficacy of various coatings and identify to target with novel formulations.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)464-477
Number of pages14
JournalBiofouling
Volume34
Issue number4
Early online date10 May 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Keywords

  • BIOFILMS
  • biocidal anti-fouling
  • Next generation sequencing
  • 16S RIBOSOMAL-RNA
  • rDNA sequencing

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