Related papers: Biopolymer dynamics driven by helical flagella
Confinement and wall effects are known to affect the kinematics and propulsive characteristics of swimming microorganisms. When a solid body is dragged through a viscous fluid at constant velocity, the presence of a wall increases fluid…
The conformations of semiflexible (bio)polymers are studied in flow through geometrically structured microchannels. Using mesoscale hydrodynamics simulations, we show that the polymer undergoes a rod-to-helix transition as it moves from the…
Numerous studies have explored the link between bacterial swimming and the number of flagella, a distinguishing feature of motile multiflagellated bacteria. We revisit this open question using augmented slender-body theory simulations, in…
Biological microswimmers such as bacteria and sperm cells often encounter complex biological fluid environments. Here we use the well-known squirmer microswimmer model to show the importance of the local fluid microstructure and…
Bacterial processes ranging from gene expression to motility and biofilm formation are constantly challenged by internal and external noise. While the importance of stochastic fluctuations has been appreciated for chemotaxis, it is…
Electromagnetically propelled helical nanoswimmers offer great potential for nanorobotic applications. Here, the effect of confinement on their propulsion is characterized using lattice-Boltzmann simulations. Two principal mechanisms give…
Biopolymers are vital structures for many living organisms; for a variety of bacteria, adhesion polymers play a crucial role for the initiation of colonization. Some bacteria express, on their surface, attachment organelles (pili) that…
The flexibility of the bacterial flagellar hook is believed to have substantial consequences for microorganism locomotion. Using a simplified model of a rigid flagellum and a flexible hook, we show that the paths of axisymmetric cell bodies…
We consider sedimentation of a rigid helical filament in a viscous fluid under gravity. In the Stokes limit, the drag forces and torques on the filament are approximated within the resistive-force theory. We develop an analytic…
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…
Most motile bacteria swim in viscous fluids by rotating multiple helical flagellar filaments. These semi-rigid filaments repeatedly join ('bundle') and separate ('unbundle'), resulting in a two-gait random walk-like motion of the cell. In…
Understanding the transport of driven nano- and micro-particles in complex fluids is of relevance for many biological and technological applications. Here we perform hydrodynamic multiparticle collision dynamics simulations of spherical and…
Most bacteria swim through fluids by rotating helical flagella which can take one of twelve distinct polymorphic shapes. The most common helical waveform is the "normal" form, used during forward swimming runs. To shed light on the…
Particle-particle interactions in sedimenting systems have been investigated in the present study considering the many-body hydrodynamic and electrodynamic interactions. These interactions primarily occur in two modes: near-field and…
The helix is a ubiquitous motif for biopolymers. We propose a heuristic, entropically based model that predicts helix formation in a system of hard spheres and semiflexible tubes. We find that the entropy of the spheres is maximized when…
Structure and dynamics of an active polymer on a smooth cylindrical surface are studied by Brownian dynamics simulations. The effect of active force on the polymer adsorption behavior and the combined effect of chain mobility, length N,…
Eukaryotic flagella are active structures with a complex architecture of microtubules, motor proteins and elastic links. They are capable of whiplike motions driven by motors sliding along filaments that are themselves constrained at an…
Swimming microorganisms often have to propel in complex, non-Newtonian fluids. We carry out experiments with self-propelling helical swimmers driven by an externally rotating magnetic field in shear-thinning, inelastic fluids. Similarly to…
Hydrodynamic forces may significantly affect the motion of polymers. In sheet-like cavities, such as the cell's cytoplasm and microfluidic channels, the hydrodynamic forces are long-range. It is therefore expected that that hydrodynamic…
Cellular locomotion often involves the motion of thin, elastic filaments, such as cilia and flagella, in viscous environments. The manuscript serves as a general introduction to the topic of modelling microscale elastohydrodynamics. We…