Tracking E. coli runs and tumbles with scattering solutions and digital holographic microscopy. Optics Express 2016, 24, 23719–23725. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Department of Physics
We use in-line digital holographic microscopy to image freely swimming E. coli. We show that fitting a light scattering model to E. coli holograms can yield quantitative information about the bacterium&\#x02019;s body rotation and tumbles, offering a precise way to track fine details of bacterial motility. We are able to extract the cell&\#x02019;s three-dimensional (3D) position and orientation and recover behavior such as body angle rotation during runs, tumbles, and pole reversal. Our technique is label-free and capable of frame rates limited only by the camera.