Mapping bacteria collective motion

Central to cellular features and behaviors is the cell genome, which encodes all the proteins and molecular machinery a cell may synthesize and express. However, knowing an organism’s full genome is often insufficient to predict its phenotype, defined broadly as the organism's set of observable characteristics. This approach is referred to as the genotype-to-phenotype problem, and finding a systematic solution process has far-reaching implications for understanding multicellular developmental processes. This talk will discuss a high-throughput imaging method using three-dimensional-printed microscopes to efficiently collect large phenotypic datasets. We use the myxobacteria, M. xanthus, known to display remarkably sophisticated forms of collective behavior, including swarming, predation, slime trail creation, and multicellular fruiting body development. Our automated methods for analysis and visualization produce a map of phenotypic variation in M. xanthus development. We also discuss how changes in substrate stiffness map gene function in M. xanthus colony expansion.