Social Cooperativity of Bacteria during Reversible Surface Attachment in Young Biofilms: a Quantitative Comparison of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14 and PAO1
Calvin K. Lee, Jérémy Vachier, Jaime de Anda, Kun Zhao, Amy E. Baker, Rachel R. Bennett, Catherine R. Armbruster, Kimberley A. Lewis, Rebecca L. Tarnopol, Charles J. Lomba, Deborah A. Hogan, Matthew R. Parsek, George A. O’Toole, Ramin Golestanian, Gerard C. L. Wong
Abstract
The initial pivotal phase of bacterial biofilm formation known as reversible attachment, where cells undergo a period of transient surface attachment, is at once universal and poorly understood. What is more, although we know that reversible attachment culminates ultimately in irreversible attachment, it is not clear how reversible attachment progresses phenotypically, as bacterial surface-sensing circuits fundamentally alter cellular behavior. We analyze diverse observed bacterial behavior one family at a time (defined as a full lineage of cells related to one another by division) using a unifying stochastic model and show that our findings lead to insights on the time evolution of reversible attachment and the social cooperative dimension of surface attachment in PAO1 and PA14 strains.