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  • Open Access

Holographic Imaging Reveals the Mechanism of Wall Entrapment in Swimming Bacteria

Silvio Bianchi1,*, Filippo Saglimbeni1, and Roberto Di Leonardo1,2

  • 1CNR-NANOTEC, Soft and Living Matter Laboratory, Rome, I-00185 Roma, Italy
  • 2Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma “Sapienza”, Rome, I-00185, Italy

  • *silvio.bianchi.phys@gmail.com
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Phys. Rev. X 7, 011010 – Published 27 January, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.7.011010

Abstract

Self-propelled particles, both biological and synthetic, are stably trapped by walls and develop high concentration peaks over bounding surfaces. In swimming bacteria, like E. coli, the physical mechanism behind wall entrapment is an intricate mixture of hydrodynamic and steric interactions with a strongly anisotropic character. The building of a clear physical picture of this phenomenon demands direct and full three-dimensional experimental observations of individual wall entrapment events. Here, we demonstrate that, by using a combination of three-axis holographic microscopy and optical tweezers, it is possible to obtain volumetric reconstructions of individual E. coli cells that are sequentially released at a controlled distance and angle from a flat solid wall. We find that hydrodynamic couplings can slow down the cell before collision, but reorientation only occurs while the cell is in constant contact with the wall. In the trapped state, all cells swim with the average body axis pointing into the surface. The amplitude of this pitch angle is anticorrelated to the amplitude of wobbling, thus indicating that entrapment is dominated by near-field couplings between the cell body and the wall. Our approach opens the way to three-dimensional quantitative studies of a broad range of fast dynamical processes in motile bacteria and eukaryotic cells.

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Popular Summary

When swimming bacteria encounter a wall, they tend to accumulate on its surface. The resulting thin films of bacteria can lead to highly resistant infections. Understanding the mechanisms responsible for this “wall entrapment” can provide insight into how these films form, as well as provide guidance on how to design devices that move populations of bacteria. Conventional microscopes, however, cannot reveal the three-dimensional trajectories and orientations of individual bacteria that are needed to disentangle the underlying physical mechanisms. We have combined holographic imaging with laser entrapment to show how bacteria interact with a wall and what forces are responsible for holding them there.

In our setup, cells of E. coli bacteria are released near a glass surface over a range of approach angles. An optical trap, which uses an infrared laser to hold cells in place, provides consistent control over the initial distance and orientation of the cells. Holographic images of the bacteria are generated by illuminating the cells at different angles with three beams of light—one red, one blue, and one green. We find that, as each bacterium approaches the wall, the wall reaction force works to align the cell so that its long axis is parallel to the surface. Hydrodynamics, however, prevents full alignment. The cell becomes trapped as it tries to swim against the wall.

The quantitative disagreement between our findings and numerical simulations suggests that a more refined description of the cell-wall interaction could be required. Further insight might be gained by studying mutant strains of E. coli against a variety of surfaces. Our technique could also be used to study other self-propelled cells such as spermatozoa and some algae.

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Phys. Rev. X 7, 011010– Published 27 January, 2017
  • Received 31 August 2016
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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