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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 May 4.
Published in final edited form as: Curr Biol. 2015 Apr 2;25(9):1201–1207. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.02.074

Figure 3. Pathogens self-segregate to co-exist in a branched flow network.

Figure 3

(A) Surface colonization of P. aeruginosa (green) and P. mirabilis (red) cells in a branched network. Both strains were initially co-inoculated in equal numbers into the seeded branch. After 15 hours of continuous flow, P. aeruginosa colonized the upper, seeded, and side branches while P. mirabilis colonized only the seeded branch. Dashed box (top) shows a region that is 100 μm upstream from the indicated section. The effluent (containing planktonic and surface-detached cells) from each branch was analyzed for (B) total cell number using optical density and (C–D) population composition using fluorescence microscopy. P. mirabilis was the dominant species in the seeded branch while P. aeruginosa was the only species that colonized the side branch. ND indicates cells were not detected. Error bars in (D) indicate standard deviation. Scale bars in (A) and (C) indicate 100 μm and 5 μm, respectively. Experiments were performed in triplicate.