Person:
Wu, Yilin

Profile Picture

Email Address

AA Acceptance Date

Birth Date

Research Projects

Organizational Units

Job Title

Last Name

Wu

First Name

Yilin

Name

Wu, Yilin

Filters

2010 - 20143

Settings

Author's Publications: search.filters.isAuthorOfPublication.9157d094-4792-4ab3-a529-ae78c3094c48

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Water Reservoir Maintained by Cell Growth Fuels the Spreading of a Bacterial Swarm
    (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012) Wu, Yilin; Berg, Howard
    Flagellated bacteria can swim across moist surfaces within a thin layer of fluid, a means for surface colonization known as swarming. This fluid spreads with the swarm, but how it does so is unclear. We used micron-sized air bubbles to study the motion of this fluid within swarms of Escherichia coli. The bubbles moved diffusively, with drift. Bubbles starting at the swarm edge drifted inward for the first 5 s and then moved outward. Bubbles starting 30 μm from the swarm edge moved inward for the first 20 s, wandered around in place for the next 40 s, and then moved outward. Bubbles starting at 200 or 300 μm from the edge moved outward or wandered around in place, respectively. So the general trend was inward near the outer edge of the swarm and outward farther inside, with flows converging on a region about 100 μm from the swarm edge. We measured cellular metabolic activities with cells expressing a short-lived GFP and cell densities with cells labeled with a membrane fluorescent dye. The fluorescence plots were similar, with peaks about 80 μm from the swarm edge and slopes that mimicked the particle drift rates. These plots suggest that net fluid flow is driven by cell growth. Fluid depth is largest in the multilayered region between approximately 30 and 200 μm from the swarm edge, where fluid agitation is more vigorous. This water reservoir travels with the swarm, fueling its spreading. Intercellular communication is not required; cells need only grow.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Osmotic Pressure in a Bacterial Swarm
    (Elsevier BV, 2014) Ping, Liyan; Wu, Yilin; Hosu, Basarab; Tang, Jay Xin; Berg, Howard
    Using Escherichia coli as a model organism, we studied how water is recruited by a bacterial swarm. A previous analysis of trajectories of small air bubbles revealed a stream of fluid flowing in a clockwise direction ahead of the swarm. A companion study suggested that water moves out of the agar into the swarm in a narrow region centered ~30 mm from the leading edge of the swarm and then back into the agar (at a smaller rate) in a region centered ~120 mm back from the leading edge. Presumably, these flows are driven by changes in osmolarity. Here, we utilized green/red fluorescent liposomes as reporters of osmolarity to verify this hypothesis. The stream of fluid that flows in front of the swarm contains osmolytes. Two distinct regions are observed inside the swarm near its leading edge: an outer high-osmolarity band (~30 mOsm higher than the agar baseline) and an inner low-osmolarity band (isotonic or slightly hypotonic to the agar baseline). This profile supports the fluid-flow model derived from the drift of air bubbles and provides new (to our knowledge) insights into water maintenance in bacterial swarms. High osmotic pressure at the leading edge of the swarm extracts water from the underlying agar and promotes motility. The osmolyte is of high molecular weight and probably is lipopolysaccharide.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Microbubbles Reveal Chiral Fluid Flows in Bacterial Swarms
    (National Academy of Sciences, 2010) Wu, Yilin; Hosu, Basarab; Berg, Howard
    Flagellated bacteria can swim within a thin film of fluid that coats a solid surface, such as agar; this is a means for colony expansion known as swarming. We found that micron-sized bubbles make excellent tracers for the motion of this fluid. The microbubbles form explosively when small aliquots of an aqueous suspension of droplets of a water-insoluble surfactant (Span 83) are placed on the agar ahead of a swarm, as the water is absorbed by the agar and the droplets are exposed to air. Using these bubbles, we discovered an extensive stream (or river) of swarm fluid flowing clockwise along the leading edge of an Escherichia coli swarm, at rates of order \(10 \mu m/s\), about three times faster than the swarm expansion. The flow is generated by the action of counterclockwise rotating flagella of cells stuck to the substratum, which drives fluid clockwise around isolated cells (when viewed from above), counterclockwise between cells in dilute arrays, and clockwise in front of cells at the swarm edge. The river provides an avenue for long-range communication in the swarming colony, ideally suited for secretory vesicles that diffuse poorly. These findings broaden our understanding of swarming dynamics and have implications for the engineering of bacterial-driven microfluidic devices.