Figure 8. Swimming speed correlates with flagellum number.
(A) Individual bacteria were analyzed for the number of flagella from TEM images and are reported as percent of the total bacterial population examined (n=83–105). (B) Speed distributions for all bacteria analyzed (Speedall) and (C) distributions summarizing the standard deviation of each individual bacterium’s speed trajectory, σbac, acquired for wild-type B128 and its isogenic flagellar mutants, fliOΔC and sRNA_T, in viscous solutions of PGM (15 mg mL−1). Representative data is from one of two independent experiments for each strain. The mutant speed distributions are significantly different from wild-type B128, where K-S p <0.05 in each case (see Table 5). No significant difference in temporal speed variation was observed between wild-type B128 and sRNA_T (p=0.10); B128 vs. fliOΔC (p=0.98); or sRNA_T vs. fliOΔC (p=0.29).