Bow-tie signaling in c-di-GMP: Machine learning in a simple biochemical network
Fig 4
Specialist strains produced by strong selection in laboratory evolution have large-effect alleles in c-di-GMP network.
A: Bulk c-di-GMP levels measured for evolved mutants, collected from bacterial colonies. B: Diagram of drip flow biofilm reactor used in biofilm selection. C: Biofilm levels quantified by the crystal violet assay. D: Production of extracellular polymers required for biofilm formation, measured using the Congo-red assay. E: Expression of the gene fliC required for flagella synthesis, measured as GFP expressed by the reporter fusion PfliC-GFP. The data of three evolved mutants fleN*dipA*, fleN*dipA** and fleN*wspF* in B-E are statistically different from ancestral strain fleN* (P<0.05). F: Phylogenetic representation of the mutants evolved in laboratory experiments showing the tradeoff between biofilm and swarming.