Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Cell adhesion and fluid flow jointly initiate genotype spatial distribution in biofilms

View ORCID ProfileRicardo Martínez-García, Carey D. Nadell, Raimo Hartmann, Knut Drescher, Juan A. Bonachela
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/243055
Ricardo Martínez-García
1Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University. Princeton NJ, 08544, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Ricardo Martínez-García
Carey D. Nadell
2Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, 35043 Marburg, Germany
3Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: juan.bonachela@rutgers.edu carey.d.nadell@Dartmouth.edu
Raimo Hartmann
2Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, 35043 Marburg, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Knut Drescher
2Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, 35043 Marburg, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Juan A. Bonachela
4Marine Population Modeling Group, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G1 1XH, Scotland, UK
5Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, Rutgers University, 14 College Farm Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: juan.bonachela@rutgers.edu carey.d.nadell@Dartmouth.edu
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Biofilms are microbial collectives that occupy a diverse array of surfaces. The function and evolution of biofilms are strongly influenced by the spatial arrangement of different strains and species within them, but how spatiotemporal distributions of different genotypes in biofilm populations originate is still underexplored. Here, we study the origins of biofilm genetic structure by combining model development, numerical simulations, and microfluidic experiments using the human pathogen Vibrio cholerae. Using spatial correlation functions to quantify the differences between emergent cell lineage segregation patterns, we find that strong adhesion often, but not always, maximizes the size of clonal cell clusters on flat surfaces. Counterintuitively, our model predicts that, under some conditions, investing in adhesion can reduce rather than increase clonal group size. Our results emphasize that a complex interaction of fluid flow and cell adhesiveness can underlie emergent patterns of biofilm genetic structure. This structure, in turn, has an outsize influence on how biofilm-dwelling populations function and evolve.

Author summary Biofilms are bacterial groups, often attached to surfaces, in which a broad variety of cooperative and competitive interactions typically occur. The spatial organization of different strains and species within biofilm communities strongly influences their global functioning, but little is known about how such structure arises. Combining experiments on V. cholerae and simulations of a cellular automaton, we show that the complex interaction between bacterial traits (cell adhesion) and environmental factors (fluid flow intensity) strongly influences the early origins of biofilm spatial structure. In most cases, we found that highly-adhesive strains form larger clusters than the weakly-adhesive ones. Against intuition, however, we also found the opposite outcome: weakly-adhesive tend to form larger clusters than the highly adhesive ones when flows are weak or the population density of colonizing cells is high.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted January 24, 2018.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Cell adhesion and fluid flow jointly initiate genotype spatial distribution in biofilms
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Cell adhesion and fluid flow jointly initiate genotype spatial distribution in biofilms
Ricardo Martínez-García, Carey D. Nadell, Raimo Hartmann, Knut Drescher, Juan A. Bonachela
bioRxiv 243055; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/243055
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Cell adhesion and fluid flow jointly initiate genotype spatial distribution in biofilms
Ricardo Martínez-García, Carey D. Nadell, Raimo Hartmann, Knut Drescher, Juan A. Bonachela
bioRxiv 243055; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/243055

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Microbiology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4377)
  • Biochemistry (9568)
  • Bioengineering (7080)
  • Bioinformatics (24813)
  • Biophysics (12594)
  • Cancer Biology (9940)
  • Cell Biology (14310)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7940)
  • Ecology (12090)
  • Epidemiology (2067)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15971)
  • Genetics (10911)
  • Genomics (14721)
  • Immunology (9856)
  • Microbiology (23611)
  • Molecular Biology (9468)
  • Neuroscience (50791)
  • Paleontology (369)
  • Pathology (1537)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2677)
  • Physiology (4004)
  • Plant Biology (8651)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1507)
  • Synthetic Biology (2388)
  • Systems Biology (6419)
  • Zoology (1345)