Cystic fibrosis pathogenesis and the role of biofilms in persistent infection.

Recent work has presented definitive evidence that the Pseudomonas cells that infect the lung in cystic fibrosis grow in the biofilm phenotype. These unequivocal data establish this chronic infection of compromised hosts as the archetypal biofilm infection, which is both refractory to antibiotic therapy and barely affected by host defenses.