Bacterial colony from two-dimensional division to three-dimensional development

On agar surface, bacterial daughter cells form a 4-cell array after the first two rounds of division, and this phenomenon has been previously attributed to a balancing of interactions among the daughter bacteria and the underneath agar. We studied further the organization and development of colony after additional generations. By confocal laser scanning microscopy and real-time imaging, we observed that bacterial cells were able to self-organize and resulted in a near circular micro-colony consisting of monolayer cells. After continuous dividing, bacteria transited from two-dimensional expansion into three-dimensional growth and formed two to multi-layers in the center but retained a monolayer in the outer ring of the circular colony. The transverse width of this outer ring appeared to be approximately constant once the micro-colony reached a certain age. This observation supports the notion that balanced interplays of the forces involved lead to a gross morphology as the bacteria divide into offspring on agar surface. In this case, the result is due to a balance between the expansion force of the dividing bacteria, the non-covalent force among bacterial offspring and that between bacteria and substratum.