Swimming bacteria power microspin cycles

Hamby, Alex; Vig, Dhruv K.; Safonova, Sasha; Wolgemuth, Charles W.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aau0125

Cited by 28 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…We hypothesize that elongated bacteria may enhance the local alignment of the rod-shaped cells and increase the vortices’ size in mesoscale turbulence(Doostmohammadi, Adamer, Thampi, & Yeomans, 2016). Thus, we treated SM3 planktonic cells with cephalexin (CEP) which has been shown to elongate E. coli (Hamby, Vig, Safonova, & Wolgemuth, 2018). This treatment indeed caused the cell length of SM3 to reach that of swarming cells on average (Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, the LB agar also provides the necessary nutrients to fuel the bacterial movement in the wells. Therefore, bacterial cells confined in the microwells remain motile for hours, much longer than in droplets surrounded by mineral oil(Hamby et al, 2018; Wioland et al, 2013) or in microfluidic chambers with glass surfaces(Beppu et al, 2017; Wioland, Lushi, et al, 2016), where bacteria movement typically lasted no more than 10 minutes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Prior studies have proposed different models to explain the circularly confined motion of rodshaped swimmers(Hamby et al, 2018; Lushi et al, 2014; Tsang & Kanso, 2015). However, previous models cannot explain the motion pattern difference we observed for confined swarming and planktonic SM3.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Confinement Discerns Swarmers from Planktonic Bacteria

Chen

Mani

Karani

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Powered by flagella, many species of bacteria exhibit collective motion on a solid surface commonly known as swarming. Physical changes like cell elongation and hyper flagellation have been shown to accompany swarming phenotype. Less noticeable, however, are the contrasts of collective motion between the swarming cells and the planktonic cells of comparable cell density. Here, we show that when confined by microwells of specific sizes mounted on a soft agar surface, novel bacteria Enterobacter sp. SM3 under swarming condition exhibited “single-swirl” motion pattern distinct from “multi-swirl” motion pattern formed by its concentrated planktonic counterpart. We hypothesize that “rafting behavior” of the swarming bacteria upon dilution might account for the motion pattern difference. This was further validated through computational simulation where swarming cells are modeled by lower repulsion and stronger alignment among them than planktonic cells. Our new technical approach also enabled us to observe swarming on a non-agar tissue surface.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Confinement Discerns Swarmers from Planktonic Bacteria

Chen

Mani

Karani

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…We hypothesize that elongated bacteria may enhance the local alignment of the rod-shaped cells and increase the vortex size in mesoscale turbulence (Doostmohammadi, Adamer, Thampi, & Yeomans, 2016;Peruani, Deutsch, & Bar, 2006). Thus, we treated SM3 planktonic cells with cephalexin (CEP) which has been shown to elongate E. coli (Hamby, Vig, Safonova, & Wolgemuth, 2018). This treatment indeed caused the cell length of SM3 to reach that of swarming cells on average (Fig.…”

Section: The Large Single Swirl Behavior Is Indicative Of Cell-cell Interactionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Confinement discerns swarmers from planktonic bacteria

Chen

Mani

Karani

et al. 2021

eLife

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Powered by flagella, many bacterial species exhibit collective motion on a solid surface commonly known as swarming. As a natural example of active matter, swarming is also an essential biological phenotype associated with virulence, chemotaxis, and host pathogenesis. Physical changes like cell elongation and hyper flagellation have been shown to accompany the swarming phenotype. Less studied, however, are the contrasts of collective motion between the swarming cells and their counterpart planktonic cells of comparable cell density. Here, we show that confining bacterial movement in circular microwells allows distinguishing bacterial swarming from collective swimming. On a soft agar plate, a novel bacterial strain Enterobacter sp. SM3 in swarming and planktonic states exhibited different motion patterns when confined to circular microwells of a specific range of sizes. When the confinement diameter was between 40 μm and 90 μm, swarming SM3 formed a single swirl motion pattern in the microwells whereas planktonic SM3 formed multiple swirls. Similar differential behavior is observed across several other species of gram-negative bacteria. We also observed 'rafting behavior' of swarming bacteria upon dilution. We hypothesize that the rafting behavior might account for the motion pattern difference. We were able to predict these experimental features via numerical simulations where swarming cells are modeled with stronger cell-cell alignment interaction. Our experimental design using PDMS microchip disk arrays enabled us to observe bacterial swarming on murine intestinal surface suggesting a new method for characterizing bacterial swarming under complex environments, such as in polymicrobial niches, and for in vivo swarming exploration.

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“…In another report, Bacillus subtilis within a disk-shaped droplet formed a stable vortex that counterrotated at the periphery. However, under similar confinement, E. coli displayed a single periodically reversed-direction vortex on a time scale of seconds ( Hamby et al, 2018 ). More interestingly, once the radius of the confinement chamber was below a critical value, B. subtilis formed a steady single vortex within a thin cylindrical chamber.…”

Section: Motion Of Bacteria In Confined Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bacterial Behavior in Confined Spaces

Zhang

et al. 2021

Front. Cell Dev. Biol.

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In confined spaces, bacteria exhibit unexpected cellular behaviors that are related to the biogeochemical cycle and human health. Types of confined spaces include lipid vesicles, polymer vesicles, emulsion droplets, microfluidic chips, and various laboratory-made chambers. This mini-review summarizes the behaviors of living bacteria in these confined spaces, including (a) growth and proliferation, (b) cell communication, and (c) motion. Future trends and challenges are also discussed in this paper.

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Swimming bacteria power microspin cycles

Abstract: Physics reveals how swimming bacteria can mimic washing machine spin cycles.

Cited by 28 publications

References 36 publications

Confinement Discerns Swarmers from Planktonic Bacteria

Confinement Discerns Swarmers from Planktonic Bacteria

Confinement discerns swarmers from planktonic bacteria

Bacterial Behavior in Confined Spaces

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