Quantifying emergence and self-organisation of Enterobacter cloacae microbial communities.

ABSTRACT: From microbial communities to cancer cells, many such complex collectives embody emergent and self-organising behaviour. Such behaviour drives cells to develop composite features such as formation of aggregates or expression of specific genes as a result of cell-cell interactions within a cell population. Currently, we lack universal mathematical tools for analysing the collective behaviour of biological swarms. To address this, we propose a multifractal inspired framework to measure the degree of emergence and self-organisation from scarce spatial (geometric) data and apply it to investigate the evolution of the spatial arrangement of Enterobacter cloacae aggregates. In a plate of semi-solid media, Enterobacter cloacae form a spatially extended pattern of high cell density aggregates. The

SUBMITTER: Balaban V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6098138 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature