Swimming Marine Bacteria Can Make Beeline to Escape Tight Spaces: Study

Vibrio fischeri (also known as Aliivibrio fischeri), a flagellated marine bacterium that forms a binary symbiosis with the Hawaiian bobtail squid (Euprymna scolopes), must navigate tight physical confinement during colonization, squeezing through a tissue bottleneck constricting to 2 μm in width on the way to its eventual home. Using microfluidic experiments, Dr. Jonathan Lynch of the Pacific Biosciences Research Center at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and colleagues discovered that Vibrio fischeri cells alter their behavior upon entry into confined space, straightening their swimming paths and promoting escape from confinement.

Nearly all organisms host bacteria that live symbiotically on or within their bodies.

The Hawaiian bobtail squid forms an exclusive symbiotic relationship with Vibrio fischeri, a bacterium that has a whip-like tail that it uses to swim to specific places in the squid’s body.

In the new study, Dr. Lynch and co-authors designed controlled chambers in which they could observe the Vibrio bacteria swimming.

Using microscopy, they discovered that as the bacteria moved between open areas and tight spaces they swim differently.

In open spaces, without chemicals to be attracted to or repelled from, bacteria appeared to meander with no discernible pattern — changing direction randomly and at different points in time.

Upon entry into confined spaces, the bacteria straightened their swimming paths to escape from confinement.

“This finding was quite surprising,” Dr. Lynch said.

“At first, we were looking for how bacterial cells changed the shape of their tails when they moved into tight spaces, but discovered that we were having trouble actually finding cells in the tight spaces.”

“After looking more closely, we figured out that it was because the bacteria were actively swimming out of the tight spaces, which we did not expect.”

The relationship between the squid and this bacterium is a useful model of how bacteria live with other animals, such as the human microbiome.

Microbes often traverse complicated routes, sometimes squeezing through tight spaces in tissues, before colonizing preferred sites in their host organism.

A variety of chemicals and nutrients within hosts are known to guide bacteria toward their eventual destination.

However, less is known about how physical features like walls, corners, and tight spaces affect bacterial swimming, despite the fact that these physical features are found across many bacteria-animal relationships.

“Our findings demonstrate that tight spaces may serve as an additional, crucial cue for bacteria while they navigate complex environments to enter specific habitats,” Dr. Lynch said.

“Changing swimming patterns in tight spaces may allow some bacteria to quickly swim through the tight spaces to get to the other side, but for the others, they turn around before the get stuck — kind of like choosing whether to run across a rickety bridge or turn around before you go too far.”

The findings appear in the Biophysical Journal.

_____

Jonathan B. Lynch et al. Transitioning to confined spaces impacts bacterial swimming and escape response. Biophysical Journal, published online April 6, 2022; doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2022.04.008