Related papers: How do biofilms feel their environment?
Bioconvection, a phenomenon arising from the collective motion of motile microorganisms, plays a crucial role in shaping microbial distributions, fluid dynamics, and bloom formation in aquatic environments. While extensive research has…
Bacterial biofilms are among the oldest and most prevalent multicellular life forms on Earth and are increasingly relevant in research areas related to industrial fouling, medicine and biotechnology. The main hurdles to obtaining definitive…
Bacterial colonies growing on surfaces are shaped by mechanical stresses transmitted through the community, governed by the balance between cell growth and steric and cell-substrate interactions. Using overdamped dynamics simulations of…
Biofilms exposed to flow experience shear stress, which leads to a competitive interaction between the growth and development of a biofilm and shearing. In this study, Pseudonomas fluorescene biofilm was grown in a microfluidic channel and…
Despite the importance that fluid flow plays in transporting and organizing populations, few laboratory systems exist to systematically investigate the impact of advection on their spatial evolutionary dynamics. To address this problem, we…
Colonies of bacteria grown on thin agar plate exhibit fractal patterns as a result of adaptation to their environments. The bacterial colony pattern formation is regulated crucially by chemotaxis, the movement of cells along a chemical…
When planktonic bacteria adhere together to a surface, they begin to form biofilms, or communities of bacteria. Biofilm formation in a host can be extremely problematic if left untreated, especially since antibiotics can be ineffective in…
Biofilms in porous media critically influence hydraulic properties in environmental and engineered systems. However, a mechanistic understanding of how microbial life controls permeability remains elusive. By combining microfluidics,…
The transition from monolayers to multilayered structures in bacterial colonies is a fundamental step in biofilm development. Observed across different morphotypes and species, this transition is triggered within freely growing bacterial…
The locomotion of microorganisms and spermatozoa in complex viscoelastic fluids is of critical importance in many biological processes such as fertilization, infection, and biofilm formation. Depending on their propulsion mechanisms,…
Thin film growth is investigated in two types of lattice gas models where substrate and film particles are different, expressed by unequal interaction energy parameters. The first is of solid-on-solid type, whereas the second type…
A method combining video imaging in parallel microchannels with a semi-empirical mathematical model provides non-intrusive, high-throughput measurements of time-varying biofilm viscosity. The approach is demonstrated for early growth…
The surface of biomaterials used as implants are highly susceptible to bacterial colonization and subsequent infection. The amount of protein adsorption on biomaterials, among other factors, can affect the nature and quality of biofilms…
Bacteria in biofilms form complex structures and can collectively migrate within mobile aggregates, which is referred to as swarming. This behavior is influenced by a combination of various factors, including morphological characteristics…
The dynamics of biofilm lifecycle are deeply influenced by the surrounding environment and the interactions between sessile and planktonic phenotypes. Bacterial biofilms typically develop in three distinct stages: attachment of cells to a…
We study colonies of non-motile, rod-shaped bacteria growing on solid substrates. In our model, bacteria interact purely mechanically, by pushing each other away as they grow, and consume a diffusing nutrient. We show that mechanical…
Bacteria are prolific at colonizing diverse surfaces under a widerange of environmental conditions, and exhibit fascinating examples of self-organization across scales. Though it has recently attracted considerable interest, the role of…
Biological interactions with material surfaces span a wide range of length scales, yet conventional surface measurements often fail to account for scale, limiting the insights they provide for surface engineering. Here, we investigate how…
Microbial flagellates typically inhabit complex suspensions of polymeric material which can impact the swimming speed of motile microbes, filter-feeding of sessile cells, and the generation of biofilms. There is currently a need to better…
Bacteria generally live in complicated structures called biofilms, consisting of communicating bacterial colonies and extracellular polymeric substance (EPS). Since biofilms are related to detrimental effects such as infection or antibiotic…