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Impact of bacteria motility in the encounter rates with bacteriophage in mucus

Kevin L Joiner1,2, Arlette Baljon3,4, Jeremy Barr5

  • 1Computational Science Research Center, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, 92182, USA. kevin.l.joiner1@navy.mil.

Scientific Reports
|November 13, 2019
PubMed

Insights

Bacteriophages (phages) interacting with mucins do not enhance encounters with bacteria in mucus. Instead, bacterial motility drives phage-bacteria interactions, suggesting a new mechanism for increased encounter rates.

Area of Science:

  • Microbiology
  • Biophysics
  • Computational Biology

Background:

  • Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that infect bacteria.
  • Phages utilize surface immunoglobulin (Ig) domains to interact with mucins in animal mucosa.
  • This interaction is hypothesized to increase phage-bacteria encounter rates in mucus, but the mechanism is unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the physical mechanism by which phage-mucin interactions affect phage-bacteria encounter rates in mucus.
  • To model phage diffusion and bacterial motility in mucus environments.

Main Methods:

  • Developed a continuous time random walk (CTRW) model for mucin-T4 phage interactions.
  • Integrated a Langevin stochastic method for Escherichia coli (E. coli) run-and-tumble motility.
  • Simulated phage-bacteria encounter rates across varying mucus concentrations.

Main Results:

  • Subdiffusion of T4 phages in mucus, contrary to prior theories, did not enhance encounter rates with static E. coli.
  • A diffusive T4 mutant lacking Ig domains showed higher encounter rates than wild-type T4 against static E. coli.
  • E. coli motility was the dominant factor influencing encounter rates for both phage types.

Conclusions:

  • Phage-mucin interactions do not inherently increase phage-bacteria encounter rates in mucus.
  • Bacterial motility, through local fluid flow, is proposed as the primary mechanism enhancing encounters between T4 phages and E. coli in mucus.

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