Physics Commons^™

Spreading Rates Of Bacterial Colonies Depend On Substrate Stiffness And Permeability, Alison Patteson, Merrill Asp, Minh H. Thanh, Danielle A. Germann, Robert J. Carroll, Alana Franceski, Roy D. Welch, Arvind Gopinath

Physics - All Scholarship

The ability of bacteria to colonize and grow on different surfaces is an essential process for biofilm development. Here, we report the use of synthetic hydrogels with tunable stiffness and porosity to assess physical effects of the substrate on biofilm development. Using time-lapse microscopy to track the growth of expanding Serratia marcescens colonies, we find that biofilm colony growth can increase with increasing substrate stiffness, unlike what is found on traditional agar substrates. Using traction force microscopy-based techniques, we find that biofilms exert transient stresses correlated over length scales much larger than a single bacterium, and that the magnitude of …