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Journal of Bacteriology, September 2009, p. 5758-5764, Vol. 191, No. 18
0021-9193/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.00660-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Paenibacillus dendritiformis Bacterial Colony Growth Depends on Surfactant but Not on Bacterial Motion{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Avraham Be'er,1* Rachel S. Smith,1 H. P. Zhang,1 E.-L. Florin,1 Shelley M. Payne,2 and Harry L. Swinney1

Center for Nonlinear Dynamics and Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712,1 Section for Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 787122

Received 20 May 2009/ Accepted 7 July 2009

Most research on growing bacterial colonies on agar plates has concerned the effect of genetic or morphotype variation. Some studies have indicated that there is a correlation between microscopic bacterial motion and macroscopic colonial expansion, especially for swarming strains, but no measurements have been obtained for a single strain to relate the microscopic scale to the macroscopic scale. We examined here a single strain (Paenibacillus dendritiformis type T; tip splitting) to determine both the macroscopic growth of colonies and the microscopic bacterial motion within the colonies. Our multiscale measurements for a variety of growth conditions revealed that motion on the microscopic scale and colonial growth are largely independent. Instead, the growth of the colony is strongly affected by the availability of a surfactant that reduces surface tension.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, University of Texas at Austin, Dean Keeton and Speedway, RLM 14.316, Austin, TX 78712. Phone: (512) 471-0619. Fax: (512) 471-1558. E-mail: address: beerav{at}gmail.com

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 17 July 2009.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/.

Journal of Bacteriology, September 2009, p. 5758-5764, Vol. 191, No. 18
0021-9193/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.00660-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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