Figure 1.

A lasR mutant behaves as a social cheat in structured populations. (a) When grown in monoculture flow cells, the lasR mutant (filled circles) shows reduced growth in QS essential media (QSM). This growth is enhanced by the presence of a WT (open circles) in co-culture. Points represent the mean, and error bars represent the 95% CI around the mean. (b) When grown in mixed culture bead biofilms with the WT in QSM, the relative fitness of the lasR mutant is higher than the WT (values greater than 1) but this difference in fitness is reduced when synthetic elastase is added to the culture. The open circles represent data points that fall outside 1.5 times the interquartile range.