Figure 3.

Condition-dependent growth advantage of biofilm colonies relies on cell-type switching. (a) Dry weight biomass (g DW) of wild-type Flo11^+/− (green), sfl1 (orange, Flo11⁺) and flo8 (blue, Flo11⁻) colonies ± s.d. on medium of different viscosity. (b) Biomass of differentiated wild-type (Flo11^+/−) clones and mixtures of mutants that are either flo8 (Flo11⁻) or sfl1 (Flo11⁺). (c) The expected trajectory of Flo11⁻ mother cells (M) in a wild-type colony, assuming that Flo11⁺ (black) and Flo11⁻ (white) can either produce daughter cells of their own type or daughter cells of the opposite type so that a mixed population of Flo11^+/− cells arises de novo. The observed trajectories of non-adhesive Flo11⁻ mother cells producing non-adhering Flo11⁻ daughter cells are plotted in (d), showing that Flo11⁻ daughter cell production exponentially decays with a half-life of 1.8 cell divisions. Flo11⁻ mother cells were recorded by microdissection until they produced an adhesive daughter cell.