Sticky Extracellular Matrix Helps Biofilms Grow up, Collapse, Spread outward

摘要

The extracellular matrix (ECM) plays an unexpectedly important role in the spread of biofilms, according to mathematician Michael Brenner and hiscollaborators, including microbiologists and physicists at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. In particular, the exopolysaccharide (EPS) component of the ECM creates osmotic pressure that forces biofilms to swell upward and sprawl outward, they say. Further, Bacillus subtilis mutants that cannot secrete EPS mirror predictions in their mathematical model.