Related papers: A Traveling-Wave Solution for Bacterial Chemotaxis…
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…
Most of our understanding of bacterial chemotaxis comes from studies of Escherichia coli. However, recent evidence suggests significant departures from the E. coli paradigm in other bacterial species. This variation may stem from different…
The bacterium E. coli maneuvers itself to regions with high chemoattractant concentrations by performing two stereotypical moves: `runs', in which it moves in near straight lines, and `tumbles', in which it does not advance but changes…
Multicellular collective migration is a ubiquitous strategy of cells to translocate spatially in diverse tissue environments to accomplish a wide variety of biological phenomena, viz. embryonic development, wound healing, and tumor…
Chemotaxis-driven invasions have been proposed across a broad spectrum of biological processes, from cancer to ecology. The influential system of equations introduced by Keller and Segel has proven a popular choice in the modelling of such…
Recent studies have shown that packings of cells, both eukaryotic cellular tissues and growing or swarming bacterial colonies, can often be understood as active nematic fluids. A key property of volume-conserving active nematic model…
We study the migration of chemotactic wild-type Escherichia coli populations in semisolid (soft) agar in the concentration range C = 0.15-0.5% (w/v). For C < 0.35%, expanding bacterial colonies display characteristic chemotactic rings. At C…
The spatiotemporal coordination and regulation of cell proliferation is fundamental in many aspects of development and tissue maintenance. Cells have the ability to adapt their division rates in response to mechanical constraints, yet we do…
Organisms must acquire and use environmental information to guide their behaviors. However, it is unclear whether and how information quantitatively limits behavioral performance. Here, we relate information to behavioral performance in…
Enzymes show two distinct transport behaviors in the presence of their substrates in solution. First, their diffusivity enhances with increasing substrate concentration. In addition, enzymes perform directional motion toward regions with…
Many organisms form colonies for a transient period of time to withstand environmental pressure. Bacterial biofilms are a prototypical example of such behavior. Despite significant interest across disciplines, physical mechanisms governing…
We study the interplay of population growth and evolutionary dynamics using a stochastic model based on birth and death events. In contrast to the common assumption of an independent population size, evolution can be strongly affected by…
We introduce a generic, purely mechanical model for environment sensitive motion of mammalian cells that is applicable to chemotaxis, haptotaxis, and durotaxis as modes of motility. It is able to theoretically explain all relevant…
Biological pattern formation is one of the most intriguing phenomena in nature. Simplest examples of such patterns are represented by travelling waves and stationary periodic patterns which occur during various biological processes…
Interaction of swimming bacteria with flows controls their ability to explore complex environments, crucial to many societal and environmental challenges and relevant for microfluidic applications as cell sorting. Combining experimental,…
Cell migration often exhibits long-range temporal correlations and anomalous diffusion, even in the absence of external guidance cues such as chemical gradients or topographical constraints. These observations raise a fundamental question:…
The interplay between cellular growth and cell-cell signaling is essential for the aggregation and proliferation of bacterial colonies, as well as for the self-organization of cell tissues. To investigate this interplay, we focus here on…
We present a new algorithm based on a Cartesian mesh for the numerical approximation of kinetic models for chemosensitive movements set in an arbitrary geometry. We investigate the influence of the geometry on the collective behavior of…
Inputs to signaling pathways can have complex statistics that depend on the environment and on the behavioral response to previous stimuli. Such behavioral feedback is particularly important in navigation. Successful navigation relies on…
Understanding how growth induces form is a longstanding biological question. Many studies concentrated on the shapes of plant cells, fungi or bacteria. Some others have shown the importance of the mechanical properties of bacterial walls…