Spatiotemporal dynamics of growth and death within spherical bacterial colonies.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial growth within colonies and biofilms is heterogeneous. Local reduction of growth rates has been associated with tolerance against various antibiotics. However, spatial gradients of growth rates are poorly characterized in three-dimensional bacterial colonies. Here, we report two spatially resolved methods for measuring growth rates in bacterial colonies. As bacteria grow and divide, they generate a velocity field that is directly related to the growth rates. We derive profiles of growth rates from the velocity field and show that they are consistent with the profiles obtained by single-cell-counting. Using these methods, we reveal that even small colonies initiated with a few thousand cells of the human pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae develop a steep gradient of growth rates within

SUBMITTER: Welker A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8391034 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature