Synthetic Patterns: Sequential Establishment of Stripe Patterns in an Expanding Cell Population

by Jian-Dong Huang

Thursday 23 Jul 2015, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Rome

Aula Conversi (Dipartimento di Fisica - Ed. G. Marconi)

We previously showed that density-suppressed motility system can generate sequential and periodic stripes patterns of high and low densities with genetic programmed E. coli cells on semi-solid agar plate. Here, we report a spatial experimental evolutionary study on the periodic patterns. The wavelengths of the patterns (distance between two stripes) formed by the evolved strains exhibit a linear relationship to the front propagation speed. Further studies revealed that the spatial evolution preserved a fixed time interval to generate each stripe. Theoretical analyses on the key parameters determining the time interval between two stripes as carried out. By tuning the migration speed without prejudice to the length of the interval, the wavelength of the stripes patterns was controlled. Our results reveal the key features of the wavelength determination of the density-suppressed motility stripes format! ion system.