Affiliation:
1. Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Jamnikarjeva 101, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Abstract
The self-binding of bacterial cells, or autoaggregation, is, together with surface colonization, one of the first steps in the formation of a mature biofilm. In this work, the autoaggregation of B. subtilis in dilute bacterial suspensions was studied. The dynamics of cell lysis, eDNA release, and bacterial autoaggregate assembly were determined and related to the spatial autocorrelation of bacterial cells in dilute planktonic bacterial suspensions. The non-random distribution of cells was associated with an eDNA network, which stabilized the initial bacterial cell-cell aggregates. Upon the addition of DNase I, the aggregates were dispersed. The release of eDNA during cell lysis allows for the entrapment of bacterial drifters at a radius several times the size of the dying bacteria. The size of bacterial aggregates increased from 2 to about 100 μm in diameter in dilute bacterial suspensions. The results suggest that B. subtilis cells form previously unnoticed continuum of autoaggregate structures during planktonic growth.
Funder
Slovenian Research Agency
ARRS to Infrastructural Centre Microscopy of Biological Samples
Subject
Virology,Microbiology (medical),Microbiology
Reference55 articles.
1. Role of Multicellular Aggregates in Biofilm Formation;Kragh;mBio,2016
2. Fruiting body formation by Bacillus subtilis;Branda;Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA,2001
3. Triggers for microbial aggregation in activated sludge?;Bossier;Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol.,1996
4. The multicopper oxidase (CueO) and cell aggregation in Escherichia coli;Tree;Environ. Microbiol.,2007
5. Haaber, J., Cohn, M.T., Frees, D., Andersen, T.J., and Ingmer, H. (2012). Planktonic aggregates of Staphylococcus aureus protect against common antibiotics. PLoS ONE, 7.