ArticleNature physics2018
Verticalization of bacterial biofilms.
Article in Nature physics, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 63 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.
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
63 citing papers in PubMed, 131 citations in OpenAlex.
- Geometric ordering in bacterial communities.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Cellular Snowballing: Cell Adhesion and Migration Drive the Self-Assembly of Cell-Microgel Biohybrid Spheroids.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Genetically homogeneous sector morphologies emerge from anisotropic colony growth.Physical review. E · 2026Article
- Mathematical Modelling and Intuition in Microbiology: A Perspective.Environmental microbiology · 2026Review
- Transition from traveling fronts to diffusion-limited growth in expanding populations.Physical review. E · 2026Article
- From Polar Clusters to Active Nematics: Experimental Signatures of Swarming Dynamics in Bacterial Monolayers.Materials (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Article
- Morphodynamics of surface-attached active drops.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Understanding the development of bacterial colony: Physiology, new technology, and modeling.Quantitative biology (Beijing, China) · 2025Review
- Equations describing semi-confluent cell growth (II) colony formation on a flat surface.European biophysics journal : EBJ · 2025Article
- Dissecting the physics of bacterial biofilms with agent-based simulations.Current opinion in solid state & materials science · 2025Article
- Spatiotemporal development of expanding bacterial colonies driven by emergent mechanical constraints and nutrient gradients.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Effects of curvature on growing films of microorganisms.Biophysical journal · 2025Article
- Growth of nonmotile stress-responsive bacteria in 3D colonies under confining pressure.Biophysical journal · 2025Article
- Nanozyme-Based Strategies against Bone Infection.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 2025Review
- Article
- The biophysical basis of bacterial colony growth.Nature physics · 2024Article
- Deciphering the influence of NaCl on social behaviour ofRoyal Society open science · 2024Article
- Review
- Mechanics limits ecological diversity and promotes heterogeneity in confined bacterial communities.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
3 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
7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Biofilms are communities of bacteria adhered to surfaces. Recently, biofilms of rod-shaped bacteria were observed at single-cell resolution and shown to develop from a disordered, two-dimensional layer of founder cells into a three-dimensional structure with a vertically-aligned core. Here, we elucidate the physical mechanism underpinning this transition using a combination of agent-based and continuum modeling. We find that verticalization proceeds through a series of localized mechanical instabilities on the cellular scale. For short cells, these instabilities are primarily triggered by cell division, whereas long cells are more likely to be peeled off the surface by nearby vertical cells, creating an "inverse domino effect". The interplay between cell growth and cell verticalization gives rise to an exotic mechanical state in which the effective surface pressure becomes constant throughout the growing core of the biofilm surface layer. This dynamical isobaricity determines the expansion speed of a biofilm cluster and thereby governs how cells access the third dimension. In particular, theory predicts that a longer average cell length yields more rapidly expanding, flatter biofilms. We experimentally show that such changes in biofilm development occur by exploiting chemicals that modulate cell length.
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.