Spatial self-organization of confined bacterial suspensions.

ABSTRACT: Lab studies of bacteria usually focus on cells in spatially extended, nutrient-replete settings, such as in liquid cultures and on agar surfaces. By contrast, many biological and environmental settings-ranging from mucus in the body to ocean sediments and the soil beneath our feet-feature multicellular bacterial populations that are confined to tight spots where essential metabolic substrates (e.g., oxygen) are scarce. What influence does such confinement have on a bacterial population? Here, we address this question by studying suspensions of motile Escherichia coli confined to quasi two-dimensional (2D) droplets. We find that when the droplet size and cell concentration are both large enough, the initially uniform suspension spatially self-organizes into a concentrated, immotile i

SUBMITTER: Hokmabad BV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12541401 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature