Fig. 1: Snowflake structures of representative strains.

a, b Y7sn-1 was isolated from the evolving Y7 population on Day 60 and Y7sn-2 was isolated from the Day 10 glycerol stock. Y7sn-2 clusters are more branchy and of smaller sizes compared to Y7sn-1. c The ACE2 gene was knocked out from the Y1140 ancestral genotype, which resulted in a snowflake phenotype.