Multicellular self-organization of P. aeruginosa due to interactions with secreted trails

Abstract

Guided movement in response to slowly diffusing polymeric trails provides a unique mechanism for self-organization of some microorganisms. To elucidate how this signaling route leads to microcolony formation, we experimentally probe the trajectory and orientation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa that propel themselves on a surface using type IV pili motility appendages, which preferentially attach to deposited exopolysaccharides. We construct a stochastic model by analyzing single-bacterium trajectories, and show that the resulting theoretical prediction for the many-body behavior of the bacteria is in quantitative agreement with our experimental characterization of how cells explore the surface via a power law strategy.

arXiv comment10 pages

References in corpus (11)

• Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf's law
• Motility-Induced Phase Separation
• Collective motion of self-propelled particles interacting without cohesion
• Collective motion and nonequilibrium cluster formation in colonies of gliding bacteria
• Clusters, asters and collective oscillations in chemotactic colloids
• Dynamic clustering and chemotactic collapse of self-phoretic active particles
• Collective Thermotaxis of Thermally Active Colloids
• Emergent comet-like swarming of optically driven thermally active colloids
• Effective dynamics of microorganisms that interact with their own trail
• Pattern formation mechanisms in motility mutants of Myxococcus xanthus
• Collective Dynamics of Dividing Chemotactic Cells

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Pairing, waltzing and scattering of chemotactic active colloids
• Chemotactic self-caging in active emulsions
• Interactions in Active Colloids
• Nonequilibrium polarity-induced mechanism for chemotaxis: emergent Galilean symmetry and exact scaling exponents
• Shape of the Growing Front of Biofilms
• Magnetic microswimmers exhibit Bose-Einstein-like condensation
• Trail-Mediated Self-Interaction
• Slowdown of the surface diffusion during early stages of bacterial colonization
• Diffusiophoretic propulsion of an isotropic active colloidal particle near a finite-sized disk embedded in a planar fluid-fluid interface
• Network patterns in exponentially growing 2D biofilms
• Rigid flocks, undulatory gaits, and chiral foldamers in a chemically active polymer