Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 12: Joint focus session (with BP): Statistics of Cellular Motion

DY 12.11: Talk

Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 13:15–13:30, H 1028

Pili-induced clustering of Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria — •Johannes Taktikos^1,2, Vasily Zaburdaev², Nicolas Biais³, David A. Weitz², and Holger Stark¹ — ¹Technische Universität Berlin — ²Harvard University, USA — ³Columbia University, USA

The attachment of Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria, the causative agent of the gonorrhea disease, to human epithelial cells constitutes the first step of colonization. The attachment of N. gonorrhoeae to surfaces or other cells is primarily mediated by filamentous appendages, called type IV pili. Cycles of elongation and retraction of these pili are responsible for a common form of bacterial motility called twitching motility which allows the bacteria to crawl over surfaces. Experimentally, N. gonorrhoeae cells initially dispersed over a surface agglomerate into round microcolonies within hours. It is so far not known whether this clustering is driven entirely by the pili dynamics or if chemotactic interactions are needed. Thus, we investigate whether the agglomeration may stem solely from the pili-mediated attraction between cells. By developing a model for pili-taxis, we try to explain the experimental measurements of the mean cluster size, number of clusters, and area fraction covered by the cells.