ArticleNature communications2024
Cell shape affects bacterial colony growth under physical confinement.
Article in Nature communications, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- 3D confinement physically regulates cell cycle progression in budding yeast.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The influence of cell morphology on the dynamics and stability of model bacterial communities.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Biosurfactants direct the evolutionary dynamics of surface-associated microbial systems.Science advances · 2026Article
- Bacterial growth under confinement requires transcriptional adaptation to resist turgor pressure build-up.Nature communications · 2026Article
- RelA-mediated (p)ppGpp accumulation links glucose starvation to peptidoglycan synthesis arrest and spherical morphogenesis via PBP2x and FtsX inJournal of bacteriology · 2026Article
- Acid shock triggers virulence surge accompanied by bacterial elongation in streptococcus mutans.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Bacterial cell fate under stress: lipid remodeling and antimicrobial peptide attack.npj antimicrobials and resistance · 2026Article
- Hydrogel platforms for engineered live biotherapeutics: materials, microbial integration and clinical potential.RSC pharmaceutics · 2026Review
- Simultaneous real-time imaging of oxygen gradients and in vivo microbial community spatial organization in confined environments.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Biophysics of Bacterial Colonial Structures and the Occupancy of Microecological Spaces.Biology · 2025Review
- Distinct Chemical Cues Reprogram Cellular and Multicellular Phenotypes in Ovarian Cancer Spheroids.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2025Article
- Optimal disk packing of chloroplasts in plant cells.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Dissecting the physics of bacterial biofilms with agent-based simulations.Current opinion in solid state & materials science · 2025Article
- Adaptations of Gram-Negative and Gram-Positive Probiotic Bacteria in Engineered Living Materials.ACS biomaterials science & engineering · 2025Article
- Individual-based modeling unravels spatial and social interactions in bacterial communities.The ISME journal · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Evidence from homogeneous liquid or flat-plate cultures indicates that biochemical cues are the primary modes of bacterial interaction with their microenvironment. However, these systems fail to capture the effect of physical confinement on bacteria in their natural habitats. Bacterial niches like the pores of soil, mucus, and infected tissues are disordered microenvironments with material properties defined by their internal pore sizes and shear moduli. Here, we use three-dimensional matrices that match the viscoelastic properties of gut mucus to test how altering the physical properties of their microenvironment influences the growth of bacteria under confinement. We find that low aspect ratio (spherical) bacteria form compact, spherical colonies under confinement while high aspect ratio (rod-shaped) bacteria push their progenies further outwards to create elongated colonies with a higher surface area, enabling increased access to nutrients. As a result, the population growth of high aspect ratio bacteria is, under the tested conditions, more robust to increased physical confinement compared to that of low aspect ratio bacteria. Thus, our experimental evidence supports that environmental physical constraints can play a selective role in bacterial growth based on cell shape.
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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.