Flagellar point mutation causes social aggregation in laboratory-adapted under conditions that promote swimming.

Motility allows microbes to explore and maximize success in their environment; however, many laboratory bacterial strains have a reduced or altered capacity for motility. Swimming motility in depends on peritrichous flagella and is carried out individually as cells move by biased random walks toward attractants. Previously, we adapted strain 3610 to the laboratory for 300 generations in lysogeny broth (LB) batch culture and isolated lab-adapted strains.