Collective Motion of Spherical Bacteria

A large variety of motile bacterial species exhibit collective motions while inhabiting liquids or colonizing surfaces. These collective motions are often characterized by coherent dynamic clusters, where hundreds of cells move in correlated whirls and jets. Previously, all species that were known t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Rabani, Amit, Ariel, Gil, Be'er, Avraham
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3869797/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24376741
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083760
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author Rabani, Amit
Ariel, Gil
Be'er, Avraham
author_facet Rabani, Amit
Ariel, Gil
Be'er, Avraham
author_sort Rabani, Amit
collection PubMed
description A large variety of motile bacterial species exhibit collective motions while inhabiting liquids or colonizing surfaces. These collective motions are often characterized by coherent dynamic clusters, where hundreds of cells move in correlated whirls and jets. Previously, all species that were known to form such motion had a rod-shaped structure, which enhances the order through steric and hydrodynamic interactions. Here we show that the spherical motile bacteria Serratia marcescens exhibit robust collective dynamics and correlated coherent motion while grown in suspensions. As cells migrate to the upper surface of a drop, they form a monolayer, and move collectively in whirls and jets. At all concentrations, the distribution of the bacterial speed was approximately Rayleigh with an average that depends on concentration in a non-monotonic way. Other dynamical parameters such as vorticity and correlation functions are also analyzed and compared to rod-shaped bacteria from the same strain. Our results demonstrate that self-propelled spherical objects do form complex ordered collective motion. This opens a door for a new perspective on the role of cell aspect ratio and alignment of cells with regards to collective motion in nature.
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spelling pubmed-38697972013-12-27 Collective Motion of Spherical Bacteria Rabani, Amit Ariel, Gil Be'er, Avraham PLoS One Research Article A large variety of motile bacterial species exhibit collective motions while inhabiting liquids or colonizing surfaces. These collective motions are often characterized by coherent dynamic clusters, where hundreds of cells move in correlated whirls and jets. Previously, all species that were known to form such motion had a rod-shaped structure, which enhances the order through steric and hydrodynamic interactions. Here we show that the spherical motile bacteria Serratia marcescens exhibit robust collective dynamics and correlated coherent motion while grown in suspensions. As cells migrate to the upper surface of a drop, they form a monolayer, and move collectively in whirls and jets. At all concentrations, the distribution of the bacterial speed was approximately Rayleigh with an average that depends on concentration in a non-monotonic way. Other dynamical parameters such as vorticity and correlation functions are also analyzed and compared to rod-shaped bacteria from the same strain. Our results demonstrate that self-propelled spherical objects do form complex ordered collective motion. This opens a door for a new perspective on the role of cell aspect ratio and alignment of cells with regards to collective motion in nature. Public Library of Science 2013-12-20 /pmc/articles/PMC3869797/ /pubmed/24376741 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083760 Text en © 2013 Rabani et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rabani, Amit
Ariel, Gil
Be'er, Avraham
Collective Motion of Spherical Bacteria
title Collective Motion of Spherical Bacteria
title_full Collective Motion of Spherical Bacteria
title_fullStr Collective Motion of Spherical Bacteria
title_full_unstemmed Collective Motion of Spherical Bacteria
title_short Collective Motion of Spherical Bacteria
title_sort collective motion of spherical bacteria
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3869797/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24376741
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083760
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