Formation of biofilms as an example of the social behavior of bacteria

This paper is a brief review of data on bacterial biofilms that occur inside and outside of host organisms. Such biofilms are of great ecological and clinical importance. The role of interspecies communications in the development of bacterial biofilms and infectious diseases is particularly emphasized. Considerable attention is given to the electron microscopic study of biofilms formed by Salmonella typhimurium cells incubated as a broth culture in microtubes without aeration. Bacterial samples taken from the biofilm and planktonic culture grown in the same microtube were comparatively investigated by transmission electron microscopy.