Related papers: Examining marginal sequence similarities between b…
The movement of the infective form of the T. Cruzi parasite within the human blood is not completely understood. Video microscopy observations confirm forward motility of the protozoa and relate it to the deformation of the body,…
Trypanosoma brucei (T. brucei), a single-celled parasite and natural microswimmer, is responsible for fatal sleeping sickness in infected mammals, including humans. Understanding how T. brucei interacts with fluid environments and navigates…
In bacteria such as $\textit{Escherichia coli}$, DNA is compacted into a nucleoid near the cell center, while ribosomes$-$molecular complexes that translate messenger RNAs (mRNAs) into proteins$-$are mainly localized at the poles. We study…
Collective migration dominates many phenomena, from cell movement in living systems to abiotic self-propelling particles. Focusing on the early stages of tumor evolution, we enunciate the principles involved in cell dynamics and highlight…
Cell motility underlies many biological processes, including cancer metastasis, bacterial infection, and evolutionary adaptation. We introduce a non-equilibrium single-cell motility model inspired by the generalized Langevin equation, which…
Diverse processes--e.g. bioremediation, biofertilization, and microbial drug delivery--rely on bacterial migration in disordered, three-dimensional (3D) porous media. However, how pore-scale confinement alters bacterial motility is unknown…
Living cells display a remarkable capacity to compartmentalize their functional biochemistry. A particularly fascinating example is the cell nucleus. Exchange of macromolecules between the nucleus and the surrounding cytoplasm does not…
We address the question, related with the origin of the genetic code, of why are there three bases per codon in the translation to protein process. As a followup to our previous work, we approach this problem by considering the…
Unraveling the evolutionary forces shaping bacterial diversity can today be tackled using a growing amount of genomic data. While the genome of eukaryotes is highly stable, bacterial genomes from cells of the same species highly vary in…
During the past century, biologists and mathematicians investigated two mechanisms underlying bacteria motion: the run phase during which bacteria move in straight lines and the tumble phase in which they change their orientation. When…
Flagellar-driven locomotion plays a critical role in bacterial attachment and colonization of surfaces, contributing to the risks of contamination and infection. Tremendous attempts to uncover the underlying principles governing bacterial…
Bacterial populations that colonize a host play important roles in host health, including serving as a reservoir that transmits to other hosts and from which invasive strains emerge, thus emphasizing the importance of understanding rates of…
When particle flux is regulated by multiple factors such as particle supply and varying transport rate, it is important to identify the respective dominant regimes. We extend the well-studied totally asymmetric simple exclusion model to…
The physics of how molecules, organelles, and foreign objects move within living cells has been extensively studied in organisms ranging from bacteria to human cells. In mammalian cells, in particular, cellular vesicles move across the cell…
Toxoplasma gondii is the causative agent responsible for toxoplasmosis and serves as one of the most common parasites in the world. For a successful lytic cycle, T. gondii must traverse biological barriers in order to invade host cells, and…
Active cellular transport is a fundamental mechanism for protein and vesicle delivery, cell cycle and molecular degradation. Viruses can hijack the transport system and use it to reach the nucleus. Most transport processes consist of…
We study evaporation and precipitate formation mechanics of bacteria-laden liquid bridge using experimental and theoretical analysis. Aqueous suspension of motile and non-motile Salmonella Typhimurium and Pseudomonas aeruginosa typically…
Trypanosoma cruzi and Giardia intestinalis are two human pathogens and protozoan parasites responsible for the diseases Chagas disease and giardiasis, respectively. Both diseases cause suffering and illness in several million individuals.…
The effect of mechanical interactions between cells in the spreading of bacterial populations was investigated in one-dimensional space. A continuum-mechanics approach, comprising cell migration, proliferation, and exclusion processes, was…
Contact between particles and motile cells underpins a wide variety of biological processes, from nutrient capture and ligand binding, to grazing, viral infection and cell-cell communication. The window of opportunity for these interactions…