Colony Expansion of Socially Motile Myxococcus xanthus Cells Is Driven by Growth, Motility, and Exopolysaccharide Production
Fig 4
Quantitative analysis of long-term expansion experiments.
(A) Cell density-dependent social motility of M. xanthus strain DK1218 (A−S+) on 0.5% agar. We observe that the transition from the slow-expansion phase to the constant-expansion phase occurs earlier for cells initiated with high densities as compared to low-density conditions. The bar represents 1700 μm. (B) The net radial expansion of the colony over time shows that colonies with different initial cell densities (points with standard error) expand with equal rates after an initial transition period, as predicted by the numerical results (lines) of our model.