Affiliation:
1. Departments of Molecular and Cellular Biology1 and
2. Mathematics,2 University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Motile cells of
Bacillus subtilis
inadvertently escaped from the surface of an agar disk that was surrounded by a fluid growth medium and formed a migrating population in the fluid. When viewed from above, the population appeared as a cloud advancing unidirectionally into the fresh medium. The cell population became spontaneously organized into a series of stripes in a region behind the advancing cloud front. The number of stripes increased progressively until a saturation value of stripe density per unit area was reached. New stripes arose at a fixed distance behind the cloud front and also between stripes. The spacing between stripes underwent changes with time as stripes migrated towards and away from the cloud front. The global pattern appeared to be stretched by the advancing cloud front. At a time corresponding to approximately two cell doublings after pattern formation, the pattern decayed, suggesting that there is a maximum number of cells that can be maintained within the pattern. Stripes appear to consist of high concentrations of cells organized in sinking columns that are part of a bioconvection system. Their behavior reveals an interplay between bacterial swimming, bioconvection-driven fluid motion, and cell concentration. A mathematical model that reproduces the development and dynamics of the stripe pattern has been developed.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Subject
Molecular Biology,Microbiology
Cited by
22 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献