Cell necklaces behave as a soft glassy material

Previously we have reported a complex and rich viscoelastic behavior observed during the Planktonic growth of S. aureus strain COL1. In particular, in stationary shear flow, the viscosity Keeps increasing during the exponential phase and returns close to its initial value for the late phase of growth, where the bactéria population stabilizes. In oscillatory flow, the elastic and viscous moduli exhibit power--‐law behaviors whose exponentes are dependente on the bacteria growth stage. These power--‐law dependencies of G’ and G’’ match a Soft Glassy Material behavior. To describe this observed behavior, we have hypothesized a microscopic model considering the formation of a dynamic web--‐like structure, where percolation phenomena can occur, depending on growth stage and cell density. In this communication we describe the formation of these web--‐like structures, resembling cell necklaces at a specific time interval during bacterial growth. These findings were obtained by combining the previous data with new measurements performed in a rheometer with real--‐time image acquisition.