Talk:Movie - Neutrophil chasing bacteria

The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

The bacteria could very well be Staph based on morphology but I do not think that what is being observed is bacterial motility. I believe that the moving neutrophil is simply displacing the bacteria that happen to be in front of it. In a few frames, you can see the bacteria leave the immediate front of the cell and once liberated seems to move by Brownian motion. Plus there is another dyad in the movie that your eye isn’t drawn to that is clearly jostled by Brownian motion not powered by some form of motility. If you watch carefully, the neutrophil only “catches” the bacterium because the bacterium jams on something and drags right before engulfment.

So, while the idea of “chasing” is funny, there is no evidence I can see for active movement on the part of the bacterium.

Daniel Kearns Associate Professor Director, Microbiology Graduate Program Department of Biology Indiana University 1001 East 3rd Street Bloomington, IN 47405 1-812-856-2523