Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Mar 19;200(11):e00014-18.
doi: 10.1128/JB.00014-18. Online ahead of print.

Assessing Travel Conditions: Environmental and Host Influences On Bacterial Surface Motility

Anne E Mattingly  1 , Abigail A Weaver  1 , Aleksandar Dimkovikj  1 , Joshua D Shrout  1   2
Affiliations

Assessing Travel Conditions: Environmental and Host Influences On Bacterial Surface Motility

Anne E Mattingly et al. J Bacteriol. .

Abstract

The degree to which surface motile bacteria explore their surroundings is influenced by aspects of their local environment. Accordingly, regulation of surface motility is controlled by numerous chemical, physical, and biological stimuli. Discernment of such regulation due to these multiple cues is a formidable challenge. Additionally inherent ambiguity and variability from the assays used to assess surface motility can be an obstacle to clear delineation of regulated surface motility behavior. Numerous studies have reported single environmental determinants of microbial motility and lifestyle behavior but the translation of these data to understand surface motility and bacterial colonization of human host or environmental surfaces is unclear. Here, we describe the current state of the field and our understanding of exogenous factors that influence bacterial surface motility.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIG 1
FIG 1
Bacterial surface motility modes. Swarming is flagellum-mediated motility assayed on top of semisolid-agar assays. Twitching is TFP-mediated motility assayed in the interstitial space between the agar-dish interface. Gliding is cell protein-associated motility assayed on top of semisolid-agar assays. Sliding is spreading of bacteria independent of appendages assayed on top of semisolid-agar assays. The arrow indicates the point of assay inoculation, and the red zone indicates the region of bacterial spreading.
None
None
None
None
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Wei Y, Wang XL, Liu JF, Nememan I, Singh AH, Weiss H, Levin BR. 2011. The population dynamics of bacteria in physically structured habitats and the adaptive virtue of random motility. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 108:4047–4052. doi:10.1073/pnas.1013499108. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Henrichsen J. 1972. Bacterial surface translocation: a survey and a classification. Bacteriol Rev 36:478–503. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kearns DB. 2010. A field guide to bacterial swarming motility. Nat Rev Microbiol 8:634–644. doi:10.1038/nrmicro2405. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Fauvart M, Phillips P, Bachaspatimayum D, Verstraeten N, Fransaer J, Michiels J, Vermant J. 2012. Surface tension gradient control of bacterial swarming in colonies of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Soft Matter 8:70–76. doi:10.1039/C1SM06002C. - DOI
    1. Jarrell K, McBride M. 2008. The surprisingly diverse ways that prokaryotes move. Nat Rev Microbiol 6:466–476. doi:10.1038/nrmicro1900. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources