Related papers: Bacteria solve the problem of crowding by moving s…
Collective cell migration underlies important biological processes, such as embryonic development, wound healing and cancer invasion. While many aspects of single cell movements are now well established, the mechanisms leading to…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
Environmental heterogeneity can drive genetic heterogeneity in expanding populations; mutant strains may emerge that trade overall growth rate for an improved ability to survive in patches that are hostile to the wild type. This…
In order to keep their cohesiveness during locomotion gregarious animals must make collective decisions. Many species boast complex societies with multiple levels of communities. A common case is when two dominant levels exist, one…
The mechanisms driving the collective movement of cells remain poorly understood. To contribute toward resolving this mystery, a model was formulated to theoretically explore the possible functions of polarized cell-cell adhesion in…
Bacteria living on surfaces use different types of motility mechanisms to move on the surface in search of food or to form micro-colonies. Twitching is one such form of motility employed by bacteria such as N. gonorrhoeae, in which the…
The trajectories of microswimmers moving in narrow channels of widths comparable to their sizes are significantly altered when they encounter another microswimmer moving in the opposite direction. The consequence of these encounters is a…
We confine a dense suspension of motile \textit{Escherichia coli} inside a spherical droplet in a water-in-oil emulsion, creating a "bacterially" propelled droplet. We show that droplets move in a persistent random walk, with a persistence…
E. coli bacteria swim following a run and tumble pattern. In the run state all flagella join in a single helical bundle that propels the cell body along approximately straight paths. When one or more flagellar motors reverse direction the…
Motile bacteria are known to accumulate at surfaces, eventually leading to changes in bacterial motility and bio-film formation. We use a novel two-colour, three-dimensional Lagrangian tracking technique, to follow simultaneously the body…
Dynamical heterogeneities in a colloidal fluid close to gelation are studied by means of computer simulations. A clear distinction between some fast particles and the rest, slow ones, is observed, yielding a picture of the gel composed by…
The formation of a collectively moving group benefits individuals within a population in a variety of ways such as ultra-sensitivity to perturbation, collective modes of feeding, and protection from environmental stress. While some…
Elucidating emergent regularities in intriguing crowd dynamics is a fundamental scientific problem arising in multiple fields. In this work, based on the social force model, we simulate the typical scenario of collective escape towards a…
Bacteria evolve in volatile environments and complex spatial structures. Migration, fluctuations and environmental variability therefore have a significant impact on the evolution of microbial populations. Here, we consider a class of…
Suspensions of swimming bacteria interact hydrodynamically over long ranges, organizing themselves into collective states that drive large-scale chaotic flows, often referred to as "bacterial turbulence". Despite extensive experimental and…
Collective decision-making in biological systems requires all individuals in the group to go through a behavioural change of state. During this transition, the efficiency of information transport is a key factor to prevent cohesion loss and…
Bacterial swarming is a complex phenomenon in which thousands of self-propelled rod-shaped cells move coherently on surfaces, providing an excellent example of active matter. However, bacterial swarming is different from most studied…
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…
Cells not only can be motile by crawling but are also capable of non-motility active motions like periodic contraction or pulsation. In this work, based on a Voronoi cell model, we show how this non-motility activity affects the structure,…
Motivated by recent experiments probing shape, size and dynamics of bacterial chromosomes in growing cells, we consider a polymer model consisting of a circular backbone to which side-loops are attached, confined to a cylindrical cell. Such…