Berlin 2018 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 15: Postersession III
BP 15.77: Poster
Dienstag, 13. März 2018, 14:00–16:00, Poster B
Population dynamics of bacterial persistence in spatially heterogeneous environments — •Pintu Patra1 and Stefan Klumpp2 — 1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany — 2Institut für Nichtlineare Dynamik, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Stochastic switching in bacteria is known to be advantageous for population growth and survival in temporally fluctuating environments. However, its role in population expansion and survival in spatially heterogeneous environments is unclear. In this work, we study the expansion of a bacterial population consisting of cells that can stochastically switch between normal and persister state in environments with nutrient-rich areas and stressful areas, for example containing antibiotics. Our results show that the population expansion speed in the nutrient-rich environment depends on the fraction of persister cells at the leading edge of the population wave. Further, when such population wave is stalled by an antibiotic barrier, the fraction of persister increases at the interface between the environments which allows the population to penetrate further into the antibiotic region. Interestingly, the extent of the population wave in the antibiotic region shows a maximum with the variation in phenotype switching rates. We explain this maximum as an interplay of population dynamics at the interface separating the two environments and the switching of persister cells to the normal state in the antibiotic region. Our study shows that stochastic switching in bacterial population determines the spatial expansion speed in nutrient-rich areas and helps in crossing antibiotic barriers.