Mass Spectrometry-Based Targeted Metabolomics Revealed the Regulatory Roles of Magnesium on Biofilm Formation in Escherichia coli by Targeting Functional Metabolites

Biofi lms often impose harmful infl uences in many niches involving food contamination,antibiotics resistance,and environmental issues.However,eradicating biofi lms remains diffi cultly because the formation mechanism of biofi lms is still incompletely clarifi ed.Here,we attempted to explore the regulatory role of magnesium(Mg^(2+))on biofi lm formation in Escherichia coli(E.coli)using phenotype visualization with targeted metabolomics method.We found that Mg^(2+)could exert signifi cant infl uence on biofi lm formation with a concentration dependency by regulating phenotypic morphology and triggering metabolic modifi cations of biofi lm.Phenotypic imaging revealed that increasing concentration of Mg^(2+)gradually inhibited biofi lm formation,Mg^(2+)was observed to restore the microstructure of E.coli strain in biofi lms to that in the relevant planktonic cells.In addition,our metabolomics analysis characterized 20 diff erential metabolites and associated two metabolic pathways including nucleotide metabolism and amino acid metabolism that were notably modifi ed during biofi lm formation under the treatments of varied Mg^(2+).Altogether,our work provides a novel insight into the infl uence of Mg^(2+)on biofi lm formation at a metabolic level,which is implicated in the novel solution to disturb biofi lm formation through the regulation of Mg^(2+)and functional metabolite interaction.