Hierarchical transitions and fractal wrinkling drive bacterial pellicle morphogenesis.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial cells can self-organize into structured communities at fluid-fluid interfaces. These soft, living materials composed of cells and extracellular matrix are called pellicles. Cells residing in pellicles garner group-level survival advantages such as increased antibiotic resistance. The dynamics of pellicle formation and, more generally, how complex morphologies arise from active biomaterials confined at interfaces are not well understood. Here, using Vibrio cholerae as our model organism, a custom-built adaptive stereo microscope, fluorescence imaging, mechanical theory, and simulations, we report a fractal wrinkling morphogenesis program that differs radically from the well-known coalescence of wrinkles into folds that occurs in passive thin films at fluid-fluid interfaces.

SUBMITTER: Qin B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8157956 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature