# Electrical signaling in bacterial biofilms

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · 2020 · $494,277

## Abstract

Electrical signaling in bacterial biofilms
Gürol Süel (P.I.), Lev Tsimring (Co-I.) and Andrew Mugler (Co-I.)
Summary
Understanding communication among bacteria is a fundamental biological problem with critical implications for
public health. Nowhere is this problem perhaps more relevant than in bacterial communities known as biofilms.
How individual bacteria communicate within such collectively organized communities to coordinate their
behavior is a long-standing question in biology. We recently discovered a new type of bacterial communication
mechanism based on ion channel mediated electrical cell-to-cell signaling in Bacillus subtilis biofilms. This
discovery made possible by our recent technical innovations, ideally positions us to tackle the fundamental and
long-standing question regarding how bacteria coordinate their behavior in biofilms. Necessitated by the multi-
scale nature of the problem, the specific aims we propose are designed to bridge across spatial and temporal
scales: 1) How does cell density and heterogeneity influence long-range communication within the biofilm? We
propose that high cell density and cell-to-cell heterogeneity in electrical activity promotes efficient signal
transmission within the biofilm. 2) What governs the composition and dispersion of biofilm communities? We
propose that long-range electrical signaling plays a critical role in attracting individual bacteria to, or repelling
them from the biofilm. 3) Does a biofilm operate as an independent functional unit in the presence of
neighboring biofilms? We propose that multiple neighboring biofilms can become coupled through long-range
electrical signaling into a super-cluster that can act as a functional unit. These questions involve phenomena
operating over length scales ranging from individual cells to groups of biofilms, and timescales ranging from
seconds to hours. Therefore, multi-scale quantitative time-lapse microscopy is the essential tool to address
these questions. Importantly, the resulting quantitative spatio-temporal measurements are ideal to inform and
constrain problem specific mathematical models and determine the role of electrical signaling in coordinating
bacteria in biofilms. The quantitative spatio-temporal measurements to be generated here will thus also serve
the broad interests of the computational biology community.
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## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9827571
- **Project number:** 5R01GM121888-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
- **Principal Investigator:** Gurol Mehmet Suel
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $494,277
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-12-09 → 2021-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9827571

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9827571, Electrical signaling in bacterial biofilms (5R01GM121888-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9827571. Licensed CC0.

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