Lubricating bacteria model for branching growth of bacterial colonies

Yonathan Kozlovsky, Inon Cohen, Ido Golding, and Eshel Ben-Jacob
Phys. Rev. E 59, 7025 – Published 1 June 1999
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Abstract

Various bacterial strains (e.g., strains belonging to the genera Bacillus, Paenibacillus, Serratia, and Salmonella) exhibit colonial branching patterns during growth on poor semisolid substrates. These patterns reflect the bacterial cooperative self-organization. A central part of the cooperation is the collective formation of a lubricant on top of the agar which enables the bacteria to swim. Hence it provides the colony means to advance towards the food. One method of modeling the colonial development is via coupled reaction-diffusion equations which describe the time evolution of the bacterial density and the concentrations of the relevant chemical fields. This idea has been pursued by a number of groups. Here we present an additional model which specifically includes an evolution equation for the lubricant excreted by the bacteria. We show that when the diffusion of the fluid is governed by a nonlinear diffusion coefficient, branching patterns evolve. We study the effect of the rates of emission and decomposition of the lubricant fluid on the observed patterns. The results are compared with experimental observations. We also include fields of chemotactic agents and food chemotaxis and conclude that these features are needed in order to explain the observations.

  • Received 9 September 1998

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.59.7025

©1999 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Yonathan Kozlovsky, Inon Cohen, Ido Golding, and Eshel Ben-Jacob

  • School of Physics and Astronomy, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69 978, Israel

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Issue

Vol. 59, Iss. 6 — June 1999

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