Figure 3 | npj Biofilms and Microbiomes

Figure 3

From: Reaction–diffusion theory explains hypoxia and heterogeneous growth within microbial biofilms associated with chronic infections

Figure 3

Relative growth rate patterns in round clusters of P. aeruginosa biofilm. (a) Transmission image of a cell cluster. (b) Pattern of GFP induction (green) and biomass counterstain (red) in the same cell cluster. a and b were imaged through the glass attachment surface in the plane of the substratum scale bars are 50 microns. (c), Theoretical substrate concentration profiles in a hemispherical cluster subject to first-order reaction kinetics for varying values of the Thiele modulus, ϕ1. (d) Theoretical curve (ϕ1=4.5) fitted to an experimental GFP fluorescence intensity obtained by image analysis from an experiment like that shown in b. (e) Thiele modulus determined by fit to experimental data plotted versus cluster radius (symbols). The line is a least squares regression whose slope has the value (k1/De)1/2; see Equation (17).

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