Related papers: A biophysical threshold for biofilm formation
Motility is a fundamental survival strategy of bacteria to navigate porous environments. Swimming cells thrive in quiescent wetlands and sediments at the bottom of the marine water column, where they mediate many essential biogeochemical…
In multicellular organisms, relations among parts and between parts and the whole are contextual and interdependent. These organisms and their cells are ontogenetically linked: an organism starts as a cell that divides producing…
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…
Collective cell migration plays a central role in tissue development, morphogenesis, wound repair and cancer progression. With the growing realization that physical forces mediate cell motility in development and physiology, a key…
In growing active matter systems, a large collection of engineered or living autonomous units metabolize free energy and create order at different length scales as they proliferate and migrate collectively. One such example is bacterial…
The problem of understanding fundamental physical constants was discussed in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology. Here, I show that a new insight comes from condensed matter physics and liquid physics in particular: fundamental…
Biological systems are majorly dependent on their property of bistability in order to exhibit nongenetic heterogeneity in terms of cellular morphology and physiology. Spatial patterns of phenotypically heterogeneous cells, arising due to…
During development, organisms acquire three-dimensional shapes with important physiological consequences. While the basic mechanisms underlying morphogenesis are known in eukaryotes, it is often difficult to manipulate them in vivo. To…
To model the morphogenesis of rod-shaped bacterial micro-colony, several individual-based models have been proposed in the biophysical literature. When studying the shape of micro-colonies, most models present interaction forces such as…
The key to a robust life system is to ensure that each cell population is maintained in an appropriate state. In this work, a mathematical model was used to investigate the control of the switching between the migrating and non-migrating…
We present a model for a biological reactor in which bacteria tend to aggregate in flocs, as encountered in wastewater treatment plants. The influence of this flocculation on the growth dynamics of the bacteria is studied. We argue that a…
Bacterial colonies are abundant on living and nonliving surfaces and are known to mediate a broad range of processes in ecology, medicine, and industry. Although extensively researched, from single cells to demographic scales, a…
Mechanical stresses stemming from environmental factors are a key determinant of cellular behavior and physiology. Yet, the role of self-induced biomechanical stresses in growing bacterial colonies has remained largely unexplored. Here, we…
The exchange of small molecular signals within microbial populations is generally referred to as quorum sensing (QS). QS is ubiquitous in nature and enables microorganisms to respond to fluctuations in living environments by working…
Collective motion is a phenomenon observed across length scales in nature, from bacterial swarming and tissue migration to the flocking of animals. The mechanisms underlying this behavior vary significantly depending on the biological…
Sensory systems have evolved to respond to input stimuli of certain statistical properties, and to reliably transmit this information through biochemical pathways. Hence, for an experimentally well-characterized sensory system, one ought to…
The ability of many living systems to actively self-propel underlies critical biomedical, environmental, and industrial processes. While such active transport is well-studied in uniform settings, environmental complexities such as geometric…
Living organisms are molecular systems with self-sustained dynamics via energy conversion through molecular cooperation, resulting in highly complex macroscopic behaviors. Construction of such autonomous macroscopic dynamics at a molecular…
Collective cell migration is a key driver of embryonic development, wound healing, and some types of cancer invasion. Here we provide a physical perspective of the mechanisms underlying collective cell migration. We begin with a catalogue…
The extracellular matrix of biofilms presents a dense and intricate architecture. Numerous biophysical properties of the matrix surrounding microbial cells contribute to the heterogeneity of biofilms and their functions at the microscale.…