科研之友
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摘要
To better understand the survival strategy of bacterial swarmers and the mechanical advantages offered by the linear chain (head-tail) attachment of the multiple bacterial bodies in an individual swarmer cell at low Reynolds number, a non-labeled cell tracking algorithm was used to quantify the mechanics of multi-body flagellated bacteria, Serratia marcescens, swimming in a motility buffer that originally exhibited the swarming motility. Swarming is a type of bacterial motility that is characterized by the collective coordinated motion of differentiated swarmer cells on a two-dimensional surface such as agar. In this study, the bacterial swarmers with multiple cell bodies (2, 3, and 4) were extracted from the swarm plate, and then tracked individually after resuspending in the motility medium. Their motion was investigated and compared with individual undifferentiated swimming bacterial cells. The swarmers when released into the motility buffer swam actively without tumbles. Their speeds, orientations, and the diffusive properties were studied by tracking the individual cell trajectories over a short distance in two-dimensional field when the cells are swimming at a constant depth in a bulk aqueous environment. At short time scales, the ballistic trajectory was dominant for both multi-body swarmers and undifferentiated cells.
- 出版日期2013-1
