ABSTRACT
Microbial biofilms are the communities of microorganisms embedded in complex extracellular polymeric substances adhered to a solid surface. Generally, it is considered to be one of the microbial survival strategies under unfavourable conditions. Microbial biofilm formation initiates with an attachment to the solid substratum, followed by secretion of extracellular polymeric substances, microcolony formation and maturation. The process of microbial biofilm formation is stringently regulated and is greatly influenced by a combination of environmental and physiological factors, such as nutrient availability and cellular stress. Albeit, microbial biofilms harbour some beneficial traits, they negatively impact human life and the economy overall in the majority of cases. The systems approach explains how microbial functions are reprogrammed during biofilm formation. For the same, the advancements in the ‘omics’ tools mainly transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and multi-omics data are frequently used to understand the regulation of biofilms very precisely. Definitely, better understanding of biofilms may help to control them effectively. Metabolomics is given more emphasis as it is an end-point monitoring tool. The metabolite profiles can be directly correlated with the observed phenotypes in contrast to genes and proteins. Therefore, metabolomics is a significant tool to identify the biochemical changes between the planktonic and biofilm phenotypes, to assess the chemical composition of biofilms, and to monitor in vivo biofilm formation and development. This chapter aims to explore major regulators of the biofilm formation process and also targeted and untargeted metabolomics approaches to unravelling biofilm formation in a range of microbial pathogens.
