SKM 2023 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 14: Focus Session: From Inter-individual Variability to Heterogeneous Group Dynamics and Disorder in Active Matter (joint session DY/BP/CPP)

BP 14.1: Hauptvortrag

Mittwoch, 29. März 2023, 09:30–10:00, ZEU 160

More is different: High-throughput 3D tracking reveals bacterial navigation strategies — •Katja Taute — Rowland Institute at Harvard, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA — Department of Biology, Microbiology, LMU München, 82152 Martinsried, Germany

How microbes navigate environmental chemical gradients has implications that range from health to climate. The behavioral mechanisms underlying chemotaxis are unknown for most species because of a lack of techniques capable of bridging scales from individual navigation behavior to the resulting population-level performance. We present a multiscale 3D chemotaxis assay that combines high-throughput 3D bacterial tracking with microfluidically created chemical gradients. Large datasets of 3D trajectories yield the statistical power required to assess chemotactic performance at the population scale, while simultaneously resolving the underlying 3D navigation behavior for every individual. Applying this technique to the well-studied model bacterium Escherichia coli, we uncover dramatic, previously unknown heterogeneity in chemotactic performance. We investigate the underlying behavioral mechanisms and discuss potential implications at the population level.