Berlin 2018 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 18: Focus Session: Physics of Microbial Systems - organized by Tobias Bollenbach and Benedikt Sabass

BP 18.6: Talk

Wednesday, March 14, 2018, 11:15–11:30, H 2013

Quantitative modeling of nutrient-limited growth of bacterial colonies in microfluidic cultivation — •Jens Elgeti — Theoretical Soft Matter and Biophysics, ICS-2, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany

Nutrient gradients and limitations play a pivotal role in the life of all microbes, both in their natural habitat as well as in artifical, microfluidic systems. Spatial concentration gradients of nutrients in densely packed cell configurations may locally affect the bacterial growth leading to heterogeneous micropopulations. A detailed understanding and quantitative modeling of cellular behaviour under nutrient limitations is thus highly desirable. We use microfluidic cultivations to investigate growth and microbial behaviour under well-controlled conditions. With a reaction-diffusion type model, parameters are extracted from steady-state experiments with a one-dimensional nutrient gradient. Subsequentially, we employ particle-based simulations with these parameters to predict the dynamical growth of a colony in two dimensions. Comparing the results of those simulations with microfluidic experiments yields excellent agreement. Our modeling approach lays the foundation for a better understanding of dynamic microbial growth processes, both in nature and in applied biotechnology.