Optimality and constraints of bacterial motility strategies
Bacterial motility
E. coli run-tumble trajectory. From Taute et al., Nat. Comm. 6:8776 2015. |
Many bacteria are motile and follow trajectories that exhibit distinct reorientation events like the classic run-and-tumble behavior of E. coli shown here.
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What causes the natural diversity of bacterial motility strategies?
Different species show different motility patterns. Why is that? We would like to understand whether the differences observed in nature reflect different physical constraints or adaptations to specific ecological requirements.
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Example trajectories from six different bacterial species. From Taute et al., Nat. Comm. 6:8776 2015. |
Tracking bacteria in 3D
From Taute et al., Nat. Comm. 6:8776 2015. |
We obtain 3D trajectories for swimming bacteria using a novel 3D tracking method that only requires a standard biological phase contrast microscope. |
Bacteria are tracked by computationally comparing their diffraction rings to a reference library. The ring pattern encodes the z-position.
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From Taute et al., Nat. Comm. 6:8776 2015. |
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Dozens of bacteria can be tracked simultaneously across a field of view spanning hundreds of micrometers in all 3 dimensions.
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