ArticleInterface focus2014
On growth and form of Bacillus subtilis biofilms.
Article in Interface focus, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers.
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Molecular mechanisms and applications of antimicrobial secondary metabolites ofApplied and environmental microbiology · 2026Review
- Transition from traveling fronts to diffusion-limited growth in expanding populations.Physical review. E · 2026Article
- Article
- Novel two-stage expansion of Streptococcus mutans biofilm supports EPS-targeted prevention strategies for early childhood caries.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2025Article
- Soft X-ray tomography reveals variations in B. subtilis biofilm structure upon tasA deletion.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2025Article
- Biofilm formation and manipulation with optical tweezers.Biomedical optics express · 2024Article
- Vertical growth dynamics of biofilms.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Attempts to limit sporulation in the probiotic strainAccess microbiology · 2023Article
- The role of biofilm matrix composition in controlling colony expansion and morphology.Interface focus · 2022Article
- An open-source computational tool for measuring bacterial biofilm morphology and growth kinetics upon one-sided exposure to an antimicrobial source.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Growth instabilities shape morphology and genetic diversity of microbial colonies.Physical biology · 2022Article
- Competition between growth and shear stress drives intermittency in preferential flow paths in porous medium biofilms.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Mechanical limitation of bacterial motility mediated by growing cell chains.Biophysical journal · 2022Article
- Evaluating comparative β-glucan production aptitude ofSaudi journal of biological sciences · 2021Article
- 'Chain and running' induced by mechanical interactions among cells of different phenotypes in the Bacillus subtilis biofilm.European biophysics journal : EBJ · 2021Article
- Topography and Expansion Patterns at the Biofilm-Agar Interface inMicroorganisms · 2020Article
- Efficient microbial colony growth dynamics quantification with ColTapp, an automated image analysis application.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Novel method to achieve crystallinity of calcite by Bacillus subtilis in coupled and non-coupled calcium-carbon sources.AMB Express · 2020Article
- Effects of Different Culture Conditions on the Biofilm Formation of Bacillus pumilus HR10.Current microbiology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A general feature of mature biofilms is their highly heterogeneous architecture that partitions the microbial city into sectors with specific micro-environments. To understand how this heterogeneity arises, we have investigated the formation of a microbial community of the model organism Bacillus subtilis. We first show that the growth of macroscopic colonies is inhibited by the accumulation of ammoniacal by-products. By constraining biofilms to grow approximately as two-dimensional layers, we then find that the bacteria which differentiate to produce extracellular polymeric substances form tightly packed bacterial chains. In addition to the process of cellular chaining, the biomass stickiness also strongly hinders the reorganization of cells within the biofilm. Based on these observations, we then write a biomechanical model for the growth of the biofilm where the cell density is constant and the physical mechanism responsible for the spreading of the biomass is the pressure generated by the division of the bacteria. Besides reproducing the velocity field of the biomass across the biofilm, the model predicts that, although bacteria divide everywhere in the biofilm, fluctuations in the growth rates of the bacteria lead to a coarsening of the growing bacterial layer. This process of kinetic roughening ultimately leads to the formation of a rough biofilm surface exhibiting self-similar properties. Experimental measurements of the biofilm texture confirm these predictions.
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