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The usage of the term "biofilm" has been used to describe the layer of film that covers sherry known as "Flor" <ref>[http://aem.asm.org/content/76/12/4089.full Ethanol-Independent Biofilm Formation by a Flor Wine Yeast Strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Severino Zara, Michael K. Gross, Giacomo Zara, Marilena Budroni and Alan T. Bakalinsky. 2010.]</ref><ref>[http://femsle.oxfordjournals.org/content/femsle/237/2/425.full.pdf FLO11 is essential for flor formation caused by the C-terminal deletion of NRG1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Mari Ishigami, Youji Nakagawa, Masayuki Hayakawa, Yuzuru Iimura. 2004.]</ref>. The word "pellicle" generally isn't used, although it has appeared on occasion when referring to sherry flor in the 60's <ref>[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5311988 On the pellicle formation by “flor” yeasts. Cantarelli C, Martini A. Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek. 1969.]</ref>. More recently, there have been studies that define a "pellicle" as we see in fermentation as a type of biofilm that forms on the air-liquid interface of a liquid (see references) <ref>[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25756106 Gram-negative bacteria can also form pellicles. Armitano J, Méjean V, Jourlin-Castelli C. Environ Microbiol Rep. 2014 Dec.]</ref><ref>[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26047954 Identification of genes essential for pellicle formation in Acinetobacter baumannii. Giles SK, Stroeher UH, Eijkelkamp BA, Brown MH. BMC Microbiol. 2015 Jun 6.]</ref><ref>[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26122431 Motility, Chemotaxis and Aerotaxis Contribute to Competitiveness during Bacterial Pellicle Biofilm Development. Hölscher T, Bartels B, Lin YC, Gallegos-Monterrosa R, Price-Whelan A, Kolter R, Dietrich LE, Kovács ÁT. J Mol Biol. 2015 Jun 26.]</ref><ref>[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24035282 Modulation of curli assembly and pellicle biofilm formation by chemical and protein chaperones. Andersson EK, Bengtsson C, Evans ML, Chorell E, Sellstedt M, Lindgren AE, Hufnagel DA, Bhattacharya M, Tessier PM, Wittung-Stafshede P, Almqvist F, Chapman MR. Chem Biol. 2013 Oct 24.]</ref>. Although these studies don't directly look at beer pellicles, this indicates that the definition of a pellicle as stated in this wiki may become more widely accepted in the scientific community.
The bottom line is that what is referred to as a "pellicle" in fermentation has not been widely studied, and the terminology is not widely established yet in the scientific community. Indeed, when researching "biofilms" and "pellicles", results will mostly refer to the more well established topics, which can lead to some initial confusion for brewers. Research done on traditional biofilms cannot necessarily be extrapolated to the pellicle phenomenon seen in fermentation.
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