Bacterial motility, collisions, and aggregation in a 3-mum-diameter capillary.
Motility of Escherichia coli K-12 cells was studied in a capillary tube with an inside diameter of 3 mum, which is comparable to the size of the cells' body. The extreme restriction, imposed by the capillary on the bacterial motility, caused a series of phenomena such as cell aggregation, swimming as a cluster, and break-up of aggregates, which were observable for the first time, and which are reported here. (c) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Department of Chemical Engineering, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118.
Chen
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Papadopoulos
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