TY - JOUR
T1 - Mechanical instability and interfacial energy drive biofilm morphogenesis
AU - Yan, Jing
AU - Fei, Chenyi
AU - Mao, Sheng
AU - Moreau, Alexis
AU - Wingreen, Ned S.
AU - Kosmrlj, Andrej
AU - Stone, Howard A.
AU - Bassler, Bonnie Lynn
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Yan et al.
PY - 2019/3
Y1 - 2019/3
N2 - Surface-attached bacterial communities called biofilms display a diversity of morphologies. Although structural and regulatory components required for biofilm formation are known, it is not understood how these essential constituents promote biofilm surface morphology. Here, using Vibrio cholerae as our model system, we combine mechanical measurements, theory and simulation, quantitative image analyses, surface energy characterizations, and mutagenesis to show that mechanical instabilities, including wrinkling and delamination, underlie the morphogenesis program of growing biofilms. We also identify interfacial energy as a key driving force for mechanomorphogenesis because it dictates the generation of new and the annihilation of existing interfaces. Finally, we discover feedback between mechanomorphogenesis and biofilm expansion, which shapes the overall biofilm contour. The morphogenesis principles that we discover in bacterial biofilms, which rely on mechanical instabilities and interfacial energies, should be generally applicable to morphogenesis processes in tissues in higher organisms.
AB - Surface-attached bacterial communities called biofilms display a diversity of morphologies. Although structural and regulatory components required for biofilm formation are known, it is not understood how these essential constituents promote biofilm surface morphology. Here, using Vibrio cholerae as our model system, we combine mechanical measurements, theory and simulation, quantitative image analyses, surface energy characterizations, and mutagenesis to show that mechanical instabilities, including wrinkling and delamination, underlie the morphogenesis program of growing biofilms. We also identify interfacial energy as a key driving force for mechanomorphogenesis because it dictates the generation of new and the annihilation of existing interfaces. Finally, we discover feedback between mechanomorphogenesis and biofilm expansion, which shapes the overall biofilm contour. The morphogenesis principles that we discover in bacterial biofilms, which rely on mechanical instabilities and interfacial energies, should be generally applicable to morphogenesis processes in tissues in higher organisms.
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U2 - 10.7554/eLife.43920
DO - 10.7554/eLife.43920
M3 - Article
C2 - 30848725
AN - SCOPUS:85064534392
SN - 2050-084X
VL - 8
JO - eLife
JF - eLife
M1 - e43920
ER -