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. 2019 Jul 4;9:9713. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-46085-z

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Reversal direction in a thin film. (A) Schematics of the experiment: a thread of mucus deposited in a glass slide is put in contact with a droplet of bacteria-rich TB. We visualize the dynamics of bacteria in a shallow part of the mucus film. (B) Superimposed snapshots showing bacterial trajectories as they arrived to the front, bounced and swam back. Only a few bacteria made a U-turn, most of them reversed motion direction. (C) Sequence of snapshots over 2s (blowout of panel (B)) showing the bacterium (marked red) arriving at the front, reversing direction and swimming back without U-turn. Scale bar 5 μm. (D) Sketch of bacteria swimming towards and leaving a shallow meniscus of mucus.