Differentiated impact assessment of the biogenic polyamines and alarmone synthetase RelMsm on the sliding motility of Mycobacterium smegmatis

The present article is devoted to the method for comparative analysis of sliding colonies. This new method includes measuring the density of bacterial cells in a monolayer. Using this method, we studied the effect of biogenic polyamines and alarmone synthetase RelMsm on Mycobacterium smegmatis sliding motility and showed a multidirectional effect of spermidine and spermine on sliding, as well as an increase in sliding motility by a strain with a relMsm deletion. It is also shown that there is no dependence between the sliding of mycobacteria and their hydrophobicity.