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Bacterial transport suppressed by fluid shear

Nature Physics volume 10, pages 212–217 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Bacteria often live in dynamic fluid environments1,2,3 and flow can affect fundamental microbial processes such as nutrient uptake1,4 and infection5. However, little is known about the consequences of the forces and torques associated with fluid flow on bacteria. Through microfluidic experiments, we show that fluid shear produces strong spatial heterogeneity in suspensions of motile bacteria, characterized by up to 70% cell depletion from low-shear regions due to ‘trapping’ in high-shear regions. Two mathematical models and a scaling analysis accurately capture these observations, including the maximal depletion at mean shear rates of 2.5–10 s−1, and reveal that trapping by shear originates from the competition between the cell alignment with the flow and the stochasticity in the swimming orientation. We show that this shear-induced trapping directly impacts widespread bacterial behaviours, by hampering chemotaxis and promoting surface attachment. These results suggest that the hydrodynamic environment may directly affect bacterial fitness and should be carefully considered in the study of microbial processes.

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Figure 1: Trajectories of bacteria in flow and shear-induced depletion.
Figure 2: Bacterial depletion is maximized for intermediate shear rates.
Figure 3: Bacterial elongation and rotational-noise-control shear-induced trapping.
Figure 4: Shear-trapping stifles chemotaxis and promotes surface attachment.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. Boffetta, V.I. Fernandez, G.L. Miño and N.T. Ouellette for discussions and comments on the manuscript, and acknowledge support by NSF grants OCE-0744641-CAREER, IOS-1120200, CBET-1066566, CBET-0966000 and a Gordon and Betty Moore Marine Microbial Initiative Investigator Award (award number 3783) (to R.S.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

    Roberto Rusconi & Roman Stocker

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA

    Jeffrey S. Guasto

Authors
  1. Roberto Rusconi
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  2. Jeffrey S. Guasto
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  3. Roman Stocker
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Contributions

R.R., J.S.G. and R.S. designed research. R.R. and J.S.G. performed experiments and simulations, and analysed the data. R.R., J.S.G. and R.S. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Roman Stocker.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Rusconi, R., Guasto, J. & Stocker, R. Bacterial transport suppressed by fluid shear. Nature Phys 10, 212–217 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2883

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