Dr. Robert Whitfield explains that 16S testing detects bacterial DNA and matches it to databases, but a positive result doesn't prove the bacteria were alive when sampled or that they formed biofilms.
In plain language, this approach looks for bacterial genetic material and compares the detected sequences with the reference information that already exists in the database to estimate which organisms may be present. A 16S result tells us that a bacterial genetic signal was detected under the assay's condition. It does not tell us by itself that the organism was alive at the time of testing. So once again, it doesn't prove that there was structure, but sort of biofilm present or anything like that.
