ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2012
Water reservoir maintained by cell growth fuels the spreading of a bacterial swarm.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed.
- Swashing: a propulsion-independent form of bacterial surface migration.Journal of bacteriology · 2025Article
- Dynamic fluid layer around immotile yeast colonies mediates the spread of bacteria.Biophysical journal · 2025Article
- The 2025 motile active matter roadmap.Journal of physics. Condensed matter : an Institute of Physics journal · 2025Review
- Swashing motility: A novel propulsion-independent mechanism for surface migration inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Active interface bulging inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Swarming ofBiophysics reviews · 2023Review
- Bacterial Swarm-Mediated Phage Transportation Disrupts a Biofilm Inherently Protected from Phage Penetration.Microbiology spectrum · 2023Article
- Geometrical control of interface patterning underlies active matter invasion.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Understanding how bacterial collectives organize on surfaces by tracking surfactant flow.Current opinion in solid state & materials science · 2023Article
- Self-organized canals enable long-range directed material transport in bacterial communities.eLife · 2022Article
- Identification of Genes Required for Swarming Motility inJournal of bacteriology · 2022Article
- Surveying a Swarm: Experimental Techniques To Establish and Examine Bacterial Collective Motion.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2022Article
- Evidence for biosurfactant-induced flow in corners and bacterial spreading in unsaturated porous media.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Molecular and Cell Biological Analysis of SwrB in Bacillus subtilis.Journal of bacteriology · 2021Article
- Article
- Long-distance Transport in Bacterial Swarms Revealed by Single Nanoparticle Tracking.Bio-protocol · 2020Article
- Bacterial surface motility is modulated by colony-scale flow and granular jamming.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2020Article
- Dynamic motility selection drives population segregation in a bacterial swarm.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Swarming Motility Without Flagellar Motor Switching by Reversal of Swimming Direction inFrontiers in microbiology · 2020Article
- Involvement of Heme in Colony Spreading ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Flagellated bacteria can swim across moist surfaces within a thin layer of fluid, a means for surface colonization known as swarming. This fluid spreads with the swarm, but how it does so is unclear. We used micron-sized air bubbles to study the motion of this fluid within swarms of Escherichia coli. The bubbles moved diffusively, with drift. Bubbles starting at the swarm edge drifted inward for the first 5 s and then moved outward. Bubbles starting 30 μm from the swarm edge moved inward for the first 20 s, wandered around in place for the next 40 s, and then moved outward. Bubbles starting at 200 or 300 μm from the edge moved outward or wandered around in place, respectively. So the general trend was inward near the outer edge of the swarm and outward farther inside, with flows converging on a region about 100 μm from the swarm edge. We measured cellular metabolic activities with cells expressing a short-lived GFP and cell densities with cells labeled with a membrane fluorescent dye. The fluorescence plots were similar, with peaks about 80 μm from the swarm edge and slopes that mimicked the particle drift rates. These plots suggest that net fluid flow is driven by cell growth. Fluid depth is largest in the multilayered region between approximately 30 and 200 μm from the swarm edge, where fluid agitation is more vigorous. This water reservoir travels with the swarm, fueling its spreading. Intercellular communication is not required; cells need only grow.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.