ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2014
Entropy-driven motility of Sinorhizobium meliloti on a semi-solid surface.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Rhizobial motility preference in root colonization of Medicago truncatula.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Reversible Bacterial Depletion Aggregation and Restabilization by Water-Soluble Polymers.Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids · 2025Article
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- Article
- Activation of ChvG-ChvI regulon by cell wall stress confers resistance to β-lactam antibiotics and initiates surface spreading in Agrobacterium tumefaciens.PLoS genetics · 2022Article
- Surface Motility Regulation ofInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Frequency modulation of a bacterial quorum sensing response.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Capillary bacterial migration on non-nutritive solid surfaces.Arhiv za higijenu rada i toksikologiju · 2020Article
- Article
- Regulation Mediated by N-Acyl Homoserine Lactone Quorum Sensing Signals in the Rhizobium-Legume Symbiosis.Genes · 2018Review
- Mechanically-driven phase separation in a growing bacterial colony.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sinorhizobium meliloti growing on soft agar can exhibit an unusual surface spreading behaviour that differs from other bacterial surface motilities. Bacteria in the colony secrete an exopolysaccharide-rich mucoid fluid that expands outward on the surface, carrying within it a suspension of actively dividing cells. The moving slime disperses the cells in complex and dynamic patterns indicative of simultaneous bacterial growth, swimming and aggregation. We find that while flagellar swimming is required to maintain the cells in suspension, the spreading and the associated pattern formation are primarily driven by the secreted exopolysaccharide EPS II, which creates two entropy-increasing effects: an osmotic flow of water from the agar to the mucoid fluid and a crowding or depletion attraction between the cells. Activation of these physical/chemical phenomena may be a useful function for the high molecular weight EPS II, a galactoglucan whose biosynthesis is tightly regulated by the ExpR/SinI/SinR quorum-sensing system: unlike bacterial colonies that spread via bacterium-generated, physical propulsive forces, S. meliloti under quorum conditions may use EPS II to activate purely entropic forces within its environment, so that it can disperse by passively 'surfing' on those forces.
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Registered trials
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