Hyperswarming adaptations in a bacterium improve collective motility without enhancing single cell motility.

ABSTRACT: Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a monoflagellated bacterium that can use its single polar flagellum to swim through liquids and move collectively over semisolid surfaces, a behavior called swarming. Previous studies have shown that experimental evolution in swarming colonies leads to the selection of hyperswarming bacteria with multiple flagella. Here we show that the advantage of such hyperswarmer mutants cannot be explained simply by an increase in the raw swimming speed of individual bacteria in liquids. Cell tracking of time-lapse microscopy to quantify single-cell swimming patterns reveals that both wild-type and hyperswarmers alternate between forward and backward runs, rather than doing the run-and-tumble characteristic of enteric bacteria such as E. coli. High-throughput measurement of s

SUBMITTER: Deforet M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3955847 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature