Escaping Confinement: How Bacteria Reshape Their Surroundings to Enable Migration

While studies of bacteria typically focus on their behavior in liquid or at flat surfaces, most bacteria inhabit structured environments such as biological tissues and organs, soils, and sediments. In these cases, physical confinement strongly impedes the ability of cells to move. Here, by monitoring the dynamics of 3D-printed populations of Escherichia coli and Vibrio Cholerae in jammed hydrogel matrices, we demonstrate how bacteria can in turn reshape their surroundings to promote their active motion and dispersal. Our results thus provide fundamental insights into the interactions between bacteria and their environment.