Potential of microfluidics for understanding the behavior of bacteria under gradients: application to soil bacteria

Microfluidics allows the study of individual bacteria in dynamic, well-controlled environments. It is a perfect tool to answer long-standing questions about bacterial surface attachment and filtration through porous media, or their response to micro- and millimeter-scale chemical gradients that drive population-level processes. In the first part of the presentation, we will see the potential of microfluidics to create model porous media. The potential of these systems to model the retention and filtration of bacteria by pores will be demonstrated. We will then see that microfluidics can also provide a better understanding of the dynamics of soil bacteria in the root environment. Finally, we will demonstrate that bacteria could be used to build structures from the aggregation of colloidal particles or to promote mixing between fluids at the micro scale.