Discover how cells under intense crowding can actually slow their own growth, leading to the formation of beautiful concentric circle patterns. This unexpected behavior could lead to new ways to control harmful microorganisms. Cell division and bacterial colonies have never been more fascinating.
The Enclosure of Fear Cells Strategy For Survival
During conditions of extreme crowding, typical at most rock concerts in a mosh pit or cells through compressivebruits. But whereas most other organisms that experience such a trapping pause deplete their internal reserves by temporarily slowing down their growth, these cooped up cells have found an alternative solution to avoid the death sentence: they dramatically slow down themselves.
The new study, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, found the surprising behavior when modeling and simulating the division of colonies. The result: a beautiful ringed pattern (each circle corresponds to the degree of repression by its neighbors) that tells us how cells respond under these conditions.
Decoding the Circle In-Circle Out Pattern
It is a very simple rule that produces all the time this smooth concentric circle pattern, which again, to me, if one looks at it for the first time, it is somewhat surprising,” said Scott Weady, lead author of the study and research fellow in The Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Biology. Cells proliferate exponentially under normal conditions, but when we ran our simulations, we found that this process wasn’t always proceeding at the expected rate. However, their spread dropped dramatically as the surrounding conditions began to fill up with too many members of the same species.
This is because the higher mechanical stress exerted by neighbouring cells retarding growth of cells in the center of the colony. ‘Once you start going out towards the edge of that circle, what happens is you generate these bands of non-uniform stress sensitivity appearing as concentric circles,’ Weady says.
Possibility of Practice for Microorganisms over Harmful
Such a study could have practical applications in controlling the growth of pathogenic organisms; for example, in bacterial infections or in manufacturing processes.
Understanding both the natural control of cell proliferation and ways to purposely influence this process is key, Weady says. This study reveals that the environment can drive cells to respond and highlights factors that do so, and promoting them could help slow the cells’ exponential rate of growth. The findings might ultimately inform new approaches to controlling the dissemination of pathogenic bacteria or other microorganisms in a wide range of environments.
This model could also be used as a basis for studying other cell behaviors or responses to different environmental perturbations, presenting a useful resource for those working in the field of cellular biology.
