Biofilms are co-dependent communities of microorganisms surrounded by their own cellular extrudates. Biofilms ready colonize every niche, and are a prevalent issue in every scientific discipline, from medicine, to environmental bioremediation, to biotechnology. Within the food processing industry, the presence of biofilms can have serious consequences on consumer health, due to the risk of harbouring foodborne pathogens, and human exposure to these biofilms results in diseases outbreaks. Moreover, biofilms can incur economic losses by reducing the shelf life of various food products, increasing product spoilage, impairing heat transfer processes during cooking, and increasing the corrosion rate of surfaces. In addition, biofilm-colonized products may be considered adulterated and might be subject to recall. Currently, biofilm research is a highly cross-disciplinary field, requires the interaction of various microbiological subjects and poses a wide field that plays an important role in all areas of microbiology.

The constant availability of safe, high quality food is essential in today’s society. However, due to increasing occurrences of foodborne disease outbreaks, there are growing concerns over food safety. Therefore, in this Research Topic, we aim to provide a platform to showcase current advances in research efforts to use natural compounds as novel sources of antimicrobial agents for food preservation and biofilm control based, particularly focussing on non-conventional methods such as utilization of bacteriocins, bacteriophages, essential oils, polyphenols, natural fibres, probiotic-derived disruptive enzymes, nano emulsions and nanoparticles. These approaches progress our current understanding of biofilm formation processes and biofilm physiology, and will shed light on the mechanisms of action involved in the application of these alternative strategies.

This research Topic welcomes contributions of Original Research Articles, Reviews, Mini-Reviews, Opinion pieces and Hypothesis and Methods manuscripts, covering the application and mechanistic action of nonconventional methods for food preservation and biofilm control, e.g. bacteriocins, bacteriophages, essential oils, polyphenols, fibres, probiotic-derived enzymes, nano emulsions and nanoparticles. In particular:

• The physiological, genetic and biochemical changes observed during application of the aforementioned unconventional biofilm controllers;

• The observed impact of unconventional controllers on biofilm development, dispersion, virulence, pathogenesis and bacterial signalling within the biofilm;

• The potential impacts of unconventional controllers on current food preservative, packaging and biotechnology and food safety management systems;

• The implications of unconventional controllers on food safety, food spoilage and quality;

• The potential impacts, toxicology and side effects of unconventional controllers on subjects ingesting/absorbing them, e.g. humans, animals, plants

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Frontiers in Microbiology

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