Studies of Bacterial Branching Growth using Reaction-Diffusion Models for Colonial Development

TL;DR

This paper explores reaction-diffusion models of bacterial colony growth, introducing a lubrication fluid component and chemotactic fields, and critically assesses their potential to uncover new biological insights.

Contribution

It presents an extended reaction-diffusion model including bacterial excreted fluids and chemotactic agents, and provides a critique of modeling approaches for bacterial branching growth.

Findings

Model incorporates lubrication fluid and chemotactic fields.

Critique highlights strengths and limitations of reaction-diffusion models.

Discussion on potential for revealing biological features.

Abstract

Various bacterial strains exhibit colonial branching patterns during growth on poor substrates. These patterns reflect bacterial cooperative self-organization and cybernetic processes of communication, regulation and control employed during colonial development. One method of modeling is the continuous, or coupled reaction-diffusion approach, in which continuous time evolution equations describe the bacterial density and the concentration of the relevant chemical fields. In the context of branching growth, this idea has been pursued by a number of groups. We present an additional model which includes a lubrication fluid excreted by the bacteria. We also add fields of chemotactic agents to the other models. We then present a critique of this whole enterprise with focus on the models' potential for revealing new biological features.