Related papers: Front-propagation in bacterial inter-colony commun…
Positive feedback regulation is ubiquitous in cell signaling networks, often leading to binary outcomes in response to graded stimuli. However, the role of such feedbacks in clustering, and in spatial spreading of activated molecules, has…
We study the role of recombination, as practiced by genetically-competent bacteria, in speeding up Darwinian evolution. This is done by adding a new process to a previously-studied Markov model of evolution on a smooth fitness landscape;…
Bacteria can adjust the structure of colonies and biofilms to enhance their survival rate under external stress. Here, we explore the link between bacterial interaction forces and colony structure. We show that the activity of extracellular…
In this paper, experimental data is presented and a simple model is developed for the time evolution of a F-amp \textit{E. Coli} culture population. In general, the bacteria life cycle as revealed by monitoring a culture's population…
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…
The revival mechanism in dormant bacteria is a puzzling and open issue. We propose a model of information diffusion on a regular grid where agents represent bacteria and their mutual interactions implement quorum sensing. Agents may have…
Swarming is a conspicuous behavioural trait observed in bird flocks, fish shoals, insect swarms and mammal herds. It is thought to improve collective awareness and offer protection from predators. Many current models involve the hypothesis…
Periodic reversals of the direction of motion in systems of self-propelled rod shaped bacteria enable them to effectively resolve traffic jams formed during swarming and maximize their swarming rate. In this paper, a connection is found…
Quorum sensing is the regulation of gene expression in response to changes in cell density. To measure their cell density, bacterial populations produce and detect diffusible molecules called autoinducers. Individual bacteria internally…
Predators and their foraging strategies often determine ecosystem structure and function. Yet, the role of protozoan predators in microbial soil ecosystems remains elusive despite the importance of these ecosystems to global biogeochemical…
Biological membranes often exhibit heterogeneous protein patterns, which cells control. Strong patterns, like the polarity spot in budding yeast, can be described as surface condensates, formed by physical interactions between constituents.…
Mechanical interactions among cells in a growing microbial colony can significantly influence the colony's spatial genetic structure and, thus, evolutionary outcomes such as the fates of rare mutations. Here, we computationally investigate…
Information processing in the mammalian brain relies on a careful regulation of the membrane potential dynamics of its constituent neurons, which propagates across the neuronal tissue via electrical signalling. We recently reported the…
Bacteria can spontaneously develop collective motions by aligning their motions in dense systems. Here, we show that bacteria can also respond collectively to an alternating electrical field and form dynamic clusters oscillating at the same…
Conjugation is a process in which bacteria exchange DNA through a physical connection (conjugative junction) between mating cells. Despite its significance for processes such as the spread of antibiotic resistance, the role of physical…
The expansion of biological species in natural environments is usually described as the combined effect of individual spatial dispersal and growth. In the case of aquatic ecosystems flow transport can also be extremely relevant as an extra,…
Many biological, physical, and social interactions have a particular dependence on where they take place. In living cells, protein movement between the nucleus and cytoplasm affects cellular response (i.e., proteins must be present in the…
Microcolonies are aggregates of a few dozen to a few thousand cells exhibited by many bacteria. The formation of microcolonies is a crucial step towards the formation of more mature bacterial communities known as biofilms, but also marks a…
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…
Several different enzymes display an apparent diffusion coefficient that increases with the concentration of their substrate. Moreover, their motion becomes directed in substrate gradients. Currently, there are several competing models for…