1640. Toward New Anti-Biofilm Therapies: High Mobility Group Box 1 (HMGB1) Protein and Its Structural Variants Can Be Used to Disrupt Bacterial Biofilms (BBs)

BB-related infections are a major public health problem, as they are notoriously refractory to current treatments. One of the defining characteristics of BBs is the extracellular polymeric substance (EPS). Extracellular DNA and the bacterial DNABII family of proteins are key components of EPS and are crucial for BBs structural integrity. It is known that targeting DNABII proteins disrupts BBs. We hypothesized that HMGB1, a DNA-binding eukaryotic protein, could affect BBs as it binds to the same DNA structures as the DNABII proteins. HMGB1 is comprised of 3 domains, A Box, B Box, and C tail, all of which have different functions. We aimed to determine in vitro the effects of HMGB1 and its individual domains against BBs