Ashwin Ramachandran

Dec 10, 2023 | biorxiv.org | Ashwin Ramachandran |Howard Stone |Zemer Gitai

AbstractPlanktonic (free-floating) cells are typically assumed to be oblivious to any flow that carries them. Here we discover that planktonic bacteria can sense flow to induce gene expression changes that are beneficial in flow. Specifically, planktonic P. aeruginosa induce shear-rate-dependent genes that promote growth in low oxygen environments. Untangling this mechanism revealed that in flow, motile P.