Movie: EPS production by ammonia oxidisers at a low rate, cells sticky
Watch the biofilm grow from 10 cells per species at time zero to 30,000 min (3 weeks), with one frame per 1,000 min. All frames were rendered with POV-Ray. Each cell is shown as a sphere. The ammonia oxidisers ("Nitroso") are blue, and the EPS they produce is bluish (cyan); the nitrite oxidisers ("Nitro") are red. See the reaction scheme below. The grey box at the bottom is the inert substratum. Note the wrapped around boundaries in the horizontal direction. Scale: total width of the system = 200 µm.
The EPS producing cells usually become separated from each other with time due to the flow of EPS they create. In this simulation, the producing cells stick to each other by means of weak attractive forces of short range, modelling surface-bound adhesive molecules or pili. Larger clusters of blue cells and correspondingly larger patches of EPS devoid of cells are formed compared with the previous movie with non-sticky cells.
