FIG 3 .

SP-treated bacteria are less persistent but generate equivalent force compared to BSA-treated bacteria. (A) The trajectories of individual bacteria were recorded after exposure to BSA or SP. SP-treated bacteria exhibit shorter average displacement lengths (MSD) over the given time interval. The curves represent the mean trajectories ± SDs from >1,000 bacteria in three independent experiments. (B) Single bacteria treated with BSA or SP were held in an optical trap, and displacement from the trap was used to quantitate the force generated by retraction of surface-adhered T4P. The force distributions were not significantly different by the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney rank sum test (U = 8,560; P > 0.05). The temperature was 37°C.