Self-Driven Jamming in Growing Microbial Populations.

ABSTRACT: In natural settings, microbes tend to grow in dense populations [1-4] where they need to push against their surroundings to accommodate space for new cells. The associated contact forces play a critical role in a variety of population-level processes, including biofilm formation [5-7], the colonization of porous media [8, 9], and the invasion of biological tissues [10-12]. Although mechanical forces have been characterized at the single cell level [13-16], it remains elusive how collective pushing forces result from the combination of single cell forces. Here, we reveal a collective mechanism of confinement, which we call self-driven jamming, that promotes the build-up of large mechanical pressures in microbial populations. Microfluidic experiments on budding yeast populations in space-lim

SUBMITTER: Delarue M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5022770 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature