Bact Channels

Bacteria grow in sprawling communities – as individual cells divide, so the overall colony grows. The plucky prokaryotes share chemicals with their neighbours, often feeding growth into stubborn biofilms that are difficult to disrupt. Here researchers find another clue to survival in the colony – canals. Pictured under a microscope, this colony of Pseudomonas aeruginosa develops channels (blue) sloshing fluids along each exploratory arm of the colony as it sprawls out. Researchers find that biosurfactant chemicals made by the bacteria help to lower surface tension in the channels, allowing them to send chemical packages called vesicles, or even to travel themselves, like barges on a canal (but 100 million times smaller). The team saw this long-range transport – a form of the Marangoni effect – even in bacteria without hair-like flagella often used to waft chemicals around. Further studies may allow researchers to develop new compounds to break disease-causing colonies apart.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

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A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Video by Ye Li and colleagues
• Department of Physics, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, September 2022