Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of antibiotics in biofilm infections of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in vitro and in vivo.

Although progress on biofilm research has been obtained during the past decades, the treatment of biofilm infections with antibiotics remains a riddle. The pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) profiles of an antimicrobial agent provide important information helping to establish an efficient dosing regimen and to minimize the development of antimicrobial tolerance and resistance in biofilm infections. Unfortunately, most previous PK/PD studies of antibiotics have been done on planktonic cells, and extrapolation of the results on biofilms is problematic as bacterial biofilms differ from planktonic grown cells in the growth rate, gene expression, and metabolism. Here, we set up several protocols for the studies of PK/PD of antibiotics in biofilm infections of P. aeruginosa in vitro and in vivo. It should be underlined that none of the protocols in biofilms have yet been certificated for clinical use or proved useful for guidance of antibiotic therapy.