Burst statistics in an early biofilm quorum sensing model: the role of spatial colony-growth heterogeneity.

ABSTRACT: Quorum-sensing bacteria in a growing colony of cells send out signalling molecules (so-called "autoinducers") and themselves sense the autoinducer concentration in their vicinity. Once-due to increased local cell density inside a "cluster" of the growing colony-the concentration of autoinducers exceeds a threshold value, cells in this clusters get "induced" into a communal, multi-cell biofilm-forming mode in a cluster-wide burst event. We analyse quantitatively the influence of spatial disorder, the local heterogeneity of the spatial distribution of cells in the colony, and additional physical parameters such as the autoinducer signal range on the induction dynamics of the cell colony. Spatial inhomogeneity with higher local cell concentrations in clusters leads to earlier but more localis

SUBMITTER: Kindler O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6700081 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature