“At a certain point, patterns appear: stripes, zigzags and rings,” said co-author Ned Wingreen, the Howard A. Prior Professor in the Life Sciences and a professor of molecular biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics. “It’s been one of those things that has personally always puzzled me.”
The study, published Mar. 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, helps illuminate how bacteria grow in diverse environments, and could also aid investigations into the physical forces that govern growth and morphing of human tissues.
“This adds to a body of work coming from a mechanical perspective that says what we’re seeing is the playing out of physical laws,” said Wingreen. “It will help us understand to what extent some of these patterns influence the biofilm properties that are important biologically and medically.”
Read more at Princeton University
Image: Sticky patches of bacteria called biofilms often form intricate, starburst-like patterns as they grow. Researchers at Princeton University combined expertise in molecular biology, mechanical engineering and mathematical modeling to unravel the physical processes underlying the biofilms’ curious crinkles. The image shows the surface topography of a Vibrio cholerae biofilm after 40 hours of growth on 0.6% agar. Image courtesy of the researchers