Related papers: Collective force generation by groups of migrating…
The transition from individual to collective motion plays a significant role in many biological processes. While the implications of different types of particle-particle interactions for the emergence of particular modes of collective…
Bacteria are prolific at colonizing diverse surfaces under a widerange of environmental conditions, and exhibit fascinating examples of self-organization across scales. Though it has recently attracted considerable interest, the role of…
The self-organization of microbial ecosystems involves a large variety of mechanisms, ranging from biochemical signaling to population dynamics. Among these, the role of motility regulation has been little studied, despite the importance of…
Collective motion is a phenomenon observed across length scales in nature, from bacterial swarming and tissue migration to the flocking of animals. The mechanisms underlying this behavior vary significantly depending on the biological…
Bacterial conglomerates such as biofilms and microcolonies are ubiquitous in nature and play an important role in industry and medicine. In contrast to well-mixed, diluted cultures routinely used in microbial research, bacteria in a…
Cell crawling requires the generation of intracellular forces by the cytoskeleton and their transmission to an extracellular substrate through specific adhesion molecules. Crawling cells show many features of excitable systems, such as…
We extend a model for the morphology and dynamics of a crawling eukaryotic cell to describe cells on micropatterned substrates. This model couples cell morphology, adhesion, and cytoskeletal flow in response to active stresses induced by…
The one-dimensional crawling movement of a cell is considered in this theoretical study. Our active gel model shows that for a cell with weakly mechanosensitive adhesion complexes, as myosin contractility increases, a cell starts to move at…
Swarming or collective motion of living entities is one of the most common and spectacular manifestations of living systems having been extensively studied in recent years. A number of general principles have been established. The…
Collective cell migration plays a central role in tissue development, morphogenesis, wound repair and cancer progression. With the growing realization that physical forces mediate cell motility in development and physiology, a key…
Motile bacteria can migrate along chemical gradients in a process known as chemotaxis. When exposed to uniform environmental stress, Escherichia coli cells coordinate their chemotactic responses to form millimeter-sized condensates…
We demonstrate that collective turbulent-like motion in a bacterial bath can power and steer directed transport of mesoscopic carriers through the suspension. In our experiments and simulations, a microwedge-like "bulldozer" draws energy…
Cellular appendages such as cilia and flagella represent universal tools enabling cells and microbes, among other essential functionalities, to propel themselves in diverse environments. In its planktonic, i.e. freely swimming, state the…
We study a generic model for the polarisation and motility of self-propelled soft objects, biological cells or biomimetic systems, interacting with a viscous substrate. The active forces generated by the cell on the substrate are modelled…
The collective behaviour of confluent cell sheets is strongly influenced both by polar forces, arising through cytoskeletal propulsion and by active inter-cellular forces, which are mediated by interactions across cell-cell junctions. We…
Bacteria predate plants and animals by billions of years. Today, they are the world's smallest cells yet they represent the bulk of the world's biomass, and the main reservoir of nutrients for higher organisms. Most bacteria can move on…
Constructing physical models of living cells and tissues is an extremely challenging task because of the high complexities of both intra- and intercellular processes. In addition, the force that a single cell generates vanishes in total due…
Collective migration -- the directed, coordinated motion of many self-propelled agents -- is a fascinating emergent behavior exhibited by active matter that has key functional implications for biological systems. Extensive studies have…
Understanding flow and transport of bacteria in porous media is crucial to technologies such as bioremediation, biomineralization or enhanced oil recovery. While physicochemical bacteria filtration is well-documented, recent studies showed…
Collective cell migration is a key driver of embryonic development, wound healing, and some types of cancer invasion. Here we provide a physical perspective of the mechanisms underlying collective cell migration. We begin with a catalogue…