Swimming of E. coli bacteria in polymer solution
Swimming bacteria in polymer solution is a topic of keen medical interest : pathogen bacteria inside the human body typically have to swim through thick mucus (polymeric material) to invade cells. While E. coli motility is reasonably well understood in aqueous media, there are only few experimental studies in polymer solution. Here, we present novel experimental study of swimming E.coli bacteria in polymer solution using two recently developed microscope-based methods. Specifically, we measured the swimming speed (v), body (W) and flagella (w) rotational frequencies, averaged over 10^4 cells, as function of polymer concentration and molecular weight. Preliminary results will be discussed.