  The presence of bacterial biofilms in clinical and industrial settings is a
major issue worldwide. A biofilm is a viscoelastic matrix, composed of bacteria
producing a network of Extracellular Polymeric Substances (EPS) to which
bacteria crosslink. Modelling of complex biofilms is relevant to provide
accurate descriptions and predictions that include parameters as hydrodynamics,
dynamics of the bacterial population and solute mass transport. However,
up-to-date numerical modelling, even at a coarse-grained level, is not
satisfactorily. In this work, we present a numerical coarse-grain model of a
bacterial biofilm, consisting of bacteria immersed in an aqueous matrix of a
polymer network, that allows to study rheological properties of a biofilm. We
study its viscoelastic modulus, varying topology and composition (such as the
number of crosslinks between EPS polymers, the number of bacteria and the
amount of solvent), and compare the numerical results with experimental
rheological data of Pseudomonas fluorescens biofilms grown under static and
shaking conditions, as previously described by Jara et al, Frontiers in
Microbiology (2021).
