Related papers: Biopolymer dynamics driven by helical flagella
We discuss the hydrodynamic collective effects due to active protein molecules that are immersed in lipid bilayer membranes and modeled as stochastic force dipoles. We specifically take into account the presence of the bulk solvent which…
Terrestrial experiments on active particles, such as Volvox, involve gravitational forces, torques and accompanying monopolar fluid flows. Taking these into account, we analyse the dynamics of a pair of self-propelling, self-spinning active…
The past few years have seen many advances in our understanding of the dynamics of polymeric fluids. These include improvements on the successful reptation theory; an emerging molecular theory of semiflexible chain dynamics; and an…
From multicellular tissues to bacterial colonies, three dimensional cellular structures arise through the interaction of cellular activities and mechanical forces. Simple bacterial communities provide model systems for analyzing such…
Free surfaces in glassy polymer films are known to induce surface mobile layers with enhanced dynamics. Using molecular dynamics simulations of a bead-spring model, we study a wide variety of layer-resolved structural and dynamical…
One of the principal mechanisms by which surfaces and interfaces affect microbial life is by perturbing the hydrodynamic flows generated by swimming. By summing a recursive series of image systems we derive a numerically tractable…
Cell motility in viscous fluids is ubiquitous and affects many biological processes, including reproduction, infection, and the marine life ecosystem. Here we review the biophysical and mechanical principles of locomotion at the small…
The dynamics of a rotating elastic filament is investigated using Stokesian simulations. The filament, straight and tilted with respect to its rotation axis for small driving torques, undergoes at a critical torque a strongly discontinuous…
The interaction of amphiphilic polymers with small colloids, capable to reversibly stick onto the chains, is studied. Adhesive small colloids in solution are able to dynamically bind two polymer segments. This association leads to…
A wide spectrum of Peritrichous bacteria undergo considerable physiological changes when they are inoculated onto nutrition-rich surfaces and exhibit a rapid and collective migration denoted as swarming. Thereby, the length of such swarmer…
Entangled networks of stiff biopolymers exhibit complex dynamic response, emerging from the topological constraints that neighboring filaments impose upon each other. We propose a class of reference models for entanglement dynamics of stiff…
We investigate the process of biopolymer translocation through a narrow pore using a multiscale approach which explicitly accounts for the hydrodynamic interactions of the molecule with the surrounding solvent. The simulations confirm that…
Mesh-like structures, such as mucus gel or cytoskeleton networks, are ubiquitous in biological systems. These intricate structures are composed of cross-linked, semi-flexible bio-filaments, crucial to numerous biological processes. In many…
Peritrichous bacteria such as Escherichia coli swim in viscous fluids by forming a helical bundle of flagellar filaments. The filaments are spatially distributed around the cell body to which they are connected via a flexible hook. To…
Single flagellated bacteria are ubiquitous in nature. They exhibit various swimming modes using their flagella to explore complex surroundings such as soil and porous polymer networks. Some single-flagellated bacteria swim with two distinct…
Active materials capable of autonomously modulating their mechanical properties are foundational to the development of next-generation soft technologies. Here, we introduce a novel class of extensible biohybrid hydrogels powered by living…
Interactions between swimming cells and surfaces are essential to many microbiological processes, from bacterial biofilm formation to human fertilization. However, in spite of their fundamental importance, relatively little is known about…
We present results from our simulations of biopolymer translocation in a solvent which explain the main experimental findings. The forced translocation can be described by simple force balance arguments for the relevant range of pore…
We study a synthetic system of motile Escherichia coli bacteria encapsulated inside giant lipid vesicles. Forces exerted by the bacteria on the inner side of the membrane are sufficient to extrude membrane tubes filled with one or several…
We investigate the driven polymer translocation through a nanometer-scale pore in the presence and absence of hydrodynamics both in good and bad solvent. We present our results on tension propagating along the polymer segment on the…