ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2013
Self-organization of bacterial biofilms is facilitated by extracellular DNA.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 130 papers.
What it found
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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.
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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.
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Who cites it
130 citing papers in PubMed, 285 citations in OpenAlex.
- Imaging nucleic acids in biofilms.Essays in biochemistry · 2026Review
- Intercalated bacterial biofilms are intrinsic internal components of calcium-based kidney stones.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Single-cell lysis patterns morphogenesis of eDNA in the matrix ofProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Biofilm and Outer Membrane Vesicle Formation in ESKAPE Gram-Negative Bacteria: A Comprehensive Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Review
- Antibiofilm efficacy of emodin alone or combined with ampicillin against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The Effects ofMicroorganisms · 2025Article
- Extracellular Bacterial Production of DNA Hydrogels-Toward Engineered Living Materials.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2025Article
- Carbapenem-ResistantAntibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Release of extracellular DNA byiScience · 2025Article
- The potential impact of iron supply on the development of starvedFrontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Biofilm formation byProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- The emerging role of bacterial extracellular vesicles in human cancers.Journal of extracellular vesicles · 2024Review
- Review
- Alkyl quinolones mediate heterogeneous colony biofilm architecture that improves community-level survival.Journal of bacteriology · 2024Article
- Life at the borderlands: microbiomes of interfaces critical to One Health.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2024Review
- Adaptive and Dissipative Hierarchical Population Crowding of Synthetic Protocells through Click-PISA under Gradient Energy Inputs.Nano letters · 2024Article
- Structure-preserving fixation allows scanning electron microscopy to reveal biofilm microstructure and interactions with immune cells.Journal of microscopy · 2024Article
- Physiological Concentrations of Calcium Interact with Alginate and Extracellular DNA in the Matrices ofLangmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids · 2023Article
- Biofilm tolerance, resistance and infections increasing threat of public health.Microbial cell (Graz, Austria) · 2023Review
70 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Twitching motility-mediated biofilm expansion is a complex, multicellular behavior that enables the active colonization of surfaces by many species of bacteria. In this study we have explored the emergence of intricate network patterns of interconnected trails that form in actively expanding biofilms of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We have used high-resolution, phase-contrast time-lapse microscopy and developed sophisticated computer vision algorithms to track and analyze individual cell movements during expansion of P. aeruginosa biofilms. We have also used atomic force microscopy to examine the topography of the substrate underneath the expanding biofilm. Our analyses reveal that at the leading edge of the biofilm, highly coherent groups of bacteria migrate across the surface of the semisolid media and in doing so create furrows along which following cells preferentially migrate. This leads to the emergence of a network of trails that guide mass transit toward the leading edges of the biofilm. We have also determined that extracellular DNA (eDNA) facilitates efficient traffic flow throughout the furrow network by maintaining coherent cell alignments, thereby avoiding traffic jams and ensuring an efficient supply of cells to the migrating front. Our analyses reveal that eDNA also coordinates the movements of cells in the leading edge vanguard rafts and is required for the assembly of cells into the "bulldozer" aggregates that forge the interconnecting furrows. Our observations have revealed that large-scale self-organization of cells in actively expanding biofilms of P. aeruginosa occurs through construction of an intricate network of furrows that is facilitated by eDNA.
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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.