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Mechanomicrobiology: how bacteria sense and respond to forces

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 18, pages 227–240 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Microorganisms have evolved to thrive in virtually any terrestrial and marine environment, exposing them to various mechanical cues mainly generated by fluid flow and pressure as well as surface contact. Cellular components enable bacteria to sense and respond to physical cues to optimize their function, ultimately improving bacterial fitness. Owing to newly developed biophysical techniques, we are now starting to appreciate the breadth of bacterial phenotypes influenced by mechanical inputs: adhesion, motility, biofilm formation and pathogenicity. In this Review, we discuss how microbiology and biophysics are converging to advance our understanding of the mechanobiology of microorganisms. We first review the various physical forces that bacteria experience in their natural environments and describe the structures that transmit these forces to a cell. We then discuss how forces can provide feedback to enhance adhesion and motility and how they can be transduced by dedicated cellular machinery to regulate diverse phenotypes. Finally, we provide a perspective on how mechanics influence biofilm spatial organization and homeostasis.

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Fig. 1: Forces on bacteria.
Fig. 2: Bacterial structures experiencing external forces.
Fig. 3: Force-induced feedback on motility and adhesion.
Fig. 4: Bacteria use mechanotransduction to regulate various phenotypes in response to forces.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank N. Biais and members of the Persat laboratory for useful discussions and feedback. A.P. is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation Projects Grant 31003A_169377, the Gabriella Giorgi-Cavaglieri Foundation, the Gebert Rüf Stiftung and the Fondation Beytout. Work at UCLouvain was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n°693630), the FNRS-WELBIO (grant n°WELBIO-CR-2015A-05), the National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), and the Research Department of the Communauté française de Belgique (Concerted Research Action).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Life Sciences, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Yves F. Dufrêne

  2. Walloon Excellence in Life Sciences and Biotechnology (WELBIO), Wavre, Belgium

    Yves F. Dufrêne

  3. Institute of Bioengineering and Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Alexandre Persat

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The authors contributed equally to all aspects of the article.

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Glossary

Forces

Interactions that change the motion or shape of a body.

Hydrostatic pressure

The pressure in a static fluid generated by gravity.

Shear forces

Forces that are applied tangentially to a body’s surface, generally generated by flow.

Mechanical stress

A quantity that expresses the internal forces of a material.

Torque

An interaction causing a body to rotate.

Flagellum basal body

A group of proteins that anchors the flagellum to the cell body and includes the flagellum motor.

Holdfast

An extremely sticky substance secreted at the poles of many prosthecate bacteria that enables irreversible attachment.

Iridescence

An optical effect where light reflecting on a surface generates rainbow-like colours by interference.

Mucins

Highly glycosylated proteins that can form a gel layer at epithelial surfaces upon exocytosis or decorate the surface of mammalian cells.

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Dufrêne, Y.F., Persat, A. Mechanomicrobiology: how bacteria sense and respond to forces. Nat Rev Microbiol 18, 227–240 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-019-0314-2

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