Article (Scientific journals)
Flagellar number governs bacterial spreading and transport efficiency
Najafi, Javad; Shaebani, Mohammad Reza; John, Thomas et al.
2018In SCIENCE ADVANCES, 4 (9)
Peer reviewed
 

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Abstract :
[en] Peritrichous bacteria synchronize and bundle their flagella to actively swim, while disruption of the bundle leads to a slow motility phase with a weak propulsion. It is still not known whether the number of flagella represents an evolutionary adaptation toward optimizing bacterial navigation. We study the swimming dynamics of differentially flagellated Bacillus subtilis strains in a quasi-two-dimensional system. We find that decreasing the number of flagella N-f reduces the average turning angle between two successive run phases and enhances the run time and the directional persistence of the run phase. As a result, having fewer flagella is beneficial for long-distance transport and fast spreading while having a lot of flagella is advantageous for the processes that require a slower spreading, such as biofilm formation. We develop a two-state random walk model that incorporates spontaneous switchings between the states and yields exact analytical expressions for transport properties, in remarkable agreement with experiments. The results of numerical simulations based on our two-state model suggest that the efficiency of searching and exploring the environment is optimized at intermediate values of N-f. The optimal choice of N-f, for which the search time is minimized, decreases with increasing the size of the environment in which the bacteria swim.
Disciplines :
Physics
Author, co-author :
Najafi, Javad;  Wagner, C (Reprint Author), Saarland Univ, Ctr Biophys, D-66041 Saarbrucken, Germany. Najafi, Javad
Shaebani, Mohammad Reza;  Shaebani, Mohammad Reza
John, Thomas;  John, Thomas
Florian, Altegoer;  Wagner, Christian, Saarland Univ, Ctr Biophys, D-66041 Saarbrucken, Germany. Altegoer, Florian
Bange, Gert;  Bange, Gert, Philipps Univ Marburg, Dept Chem, D-35043 Marburg, Germany. Altegoer, Florian
Wagner, Christian ;  University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication (FSTC) > Physics and Materials Science Research Unit
External co-authors :
yes
Title :
Flagellar number governs bacterial spreading and transport efficiency
Publication date :
2018
Journal title :
SCIENCE ADVANCES
Publisher :
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE, 1200 NEW YORK AVE, NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20005 USA, Unknown/unspecified
Volume :
4
Issue :
9
Peer reviewed :
Peer reviewed
Commentary :
Article
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