Related papers: Biofilm self-patterning: mechanical forces drive a…
Three-dimensional cultures of cells are gaining popularity as an in vitro improvement over 2D Petri dishes. In many such experiments, cells have been found to organize in aggregates. We present new results of three-dimensional in vitro…
In active matter systems, deformable boundaries provide a mechanism to organize internal active stresses and perform work on the external environment. To study a minimal model of such a system, we perform particle-based simulations of an…
Monolayers of growing non-motile rod-shaped bacteria act as active nematic materials composed of hard particles rather than the flexible components of other commonly studied active nematics. The organization of these granular monolayers has…
Colloids self-assemble into various organized superstructures determined by particle interactions. There is a tremendous progress in both the scientific understanding and applications of self-assemblies of single-type identical particles.…
The enteric bacterium Proteus mirabilis, which is a pathogen that forms biofilms in vivo, can swarm over hard surfaces and form concentric ring patterns in colonies. Colony formation involves two distinct cell types: swarmer cells that…
Growth and shape formation in crowded multicellular assemblies arise from the interplay of chemical gradients, single-cell expansion and mechanical interactions, making it essential to understand how these processes jointly shape collective…
We reveal that the mechanical pulsation of locally synchronised particles is a generic route to propagate deformation waves. We consider a model of dense repulsive particles whose activity drives periodic change in size of each individual.…
Cell invasion and spatial pattern formation are two distinct manifestations of cellular self-organisation in development, regeneration, and disease. Here, we develop and analyse a unified theoretical framework that links these two seemingly…
We study the dynamics of proliferating cell collectives whose microscopic constituents' growth is inhibited by macroscopic growth-induced stress. Discrete particle simulations of a growing collective show the emergence of concentric-ring…
Self-propulsion and navigation due to the sensing of environmental conditions - such as durotaxis and chemotaxis - are remarkable properties of biological cells that cannot be reproduced by single-component self-propelled particles. We…
Biological cells are able to generate intricate structures and respond to external stimuli, sculpting their membrane from within. Simplified biomimetic systems can aid in understanding the principles which govern these shape changes and…
Cellular tissue behavior is a multiscale problem. At the cell level, out of equilibrium, biochemical reactions drive physical cell-cell interactions in a typical active matter process. Cell modeling computer simulations are a robust tool to…
The transfer of chirality across length-scales is an intriguing and universal natural phenomenon. However, connecting the properties of individual building blocks to the emergent features of their resulting large-scale structure remains a…
Correlated velocity patterns and associated large length-scale transmission of traction forces have been observed in collective live cell migration as a response to a "wound". We argue that a simple physical model of a force-driven…
The twisting and writhing of a cell body and associated mechanical stresses is an underappreciated constraint on microbial self-propulsion. Multi-flagellated bacteria can even buckle and writhe under their own activity as they swim through…
Biological active materials such as bacterial biofilms and eukaryotic cells thrive in confined micro-spaces. Here, we show through numerical simulations that confinement can serve as a mechanical guidance to achieve distinct modes of…
We characterize cell motion in experiments and show that the transition to collective motion in colonies of gliding bacterial cells confined to a monolayer appears through the organization of cells into larger moving clusters. Collective…
Driven or self-propelling particles moving in viscoelastic fluids recently emerge as novel class of active systems showing a complex yet rich set of phenomena due to the non-Newtonian nature of the dispersing medium. Here we investigate the…
Through extensive studies of dynamical system modeling cellular growth and reproduction, we find evidence that complexity arises in multicellular organisms naturally through evolution. Without any elaborate control mechanism, these systems…
Via molecular dynamics simulations, we study the kinetics in a phase separating active matter model. Quantitative results for the isotropic bicontinuous pattern formation, its growth and aging, studied, respectively, via the two-point…