Regensburg 2025 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 4: Bacterial Biophysics

BP 4.3: Vortrag

Montag, 17. März 2025, 10:15–10:30, H46

Dynamics of bacterial growth and colony development in heterogeneous mechanical landscapes — •Chenyu Jin¹ and Anupam Sengupta^{1, 2} — ¹Physics of Living Matter Group, Department of Physics and Materials Science, University of Luxembourg, 162 A, Avenue de la Faïencerie, L-1511, Luxembourg — ²Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Luxembourg, Avenue de l’Université, L-4365, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

Bacteria inhabit diverse confinements, experiencing different mechanical cues including surface stiffness and adhesion, friction and wettability [1]. Recent studies have revealed how local crowding and phenotypic noise impact bacterial growth and structural changes like the monolayer-to-multilayer transitions (MTMT)[2,3]. Yet how colonies proliferate in heterogeneous physical landscapes remain largely unknown [4]. Here we combine quantitative imaging and numerical modeling to compare the dynamics of colony growth within soft hydrogels with those in liquid media for different bacterial species. We find that the growth rate typically decreases across species, at both the colony and individual scales, while the critical area at the MTMT increases by an order of magnitude in the confined environment. An accompanying bioenergetic model offers mechanistic insights into the colony development in heterogeneous mechanical settings.

[1] NAM Araújo, LMC Janssen, et al., Soft Matter 19, 1695-1704 (2023). [2] R Wittmann, …, A Sengupta, Commun. Phys. 6, 331 (2023). [3] J Dhar, …, A Sengupta, Nat. Phys. 18, 945 (2022). [4] C Jin, A Sengupta, Biophys. Rev. 16, 2024

Keywords: Confinement; Biomechanics; Microbial mechanotransduction; Microbial adaptation; Microbial energy management