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Related papers: A biophysical threshold for biofilm formation

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The ability of bacteria to colonize and grow on different surfaces is an essential process for biofilm development and depends on complex biomechanical interactions between the biofilm and the underlying substrate. Changes in the physical…

Biological Physics · Physics 2021-03-16 Merrill Asp , Minh Tri Ho Thanh , Arvind Gopinath , Alison E. Patteson

Bacterial biofilms play a significant role in various fields that impact our daily lives, from detrimental public health hazards to beneficial applications in bioremediation, biodegradation, and wastewater treatment. However,…

Biofilms are bacterial aggregates that grow on moist surfaces. Thin homogeneous biofilms naturally formed on the walls of conducts may serve as biosensors, providing information on the status of microsystems (MEMS) without disrupting them.…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-01-17 Ana Carpio , Baldvin Einarsson , David R. Espeso

We propose a computational framework to study the growth and spread of bacterial biofilms on interfaces, as well as the action of antibiotics on them. Bacterial membranes are represented by boundaries immersed in a fluid matrix and subject…

Cell Behavior · Quantitative Biology 2022-01-11 Ana Carpio , Rafael Gonzalez-Albaladejo

A stochastic model is used to assess the effect of external parameters on the development of submerged biofilms on smooth and rough surfaces. The model includes basic cellular mechanisms, such as division and spreading, together with an…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-01-17 David Rodriguez , Baldvin Einarsson , Ana Carpio

How motile bacteria move near a surface is a problem of fundamental biophysical interest and is key to the emergence of several phenomena of biological, ecological and medical relevance, including biofilm formation. Solid boundaries can…

Biological Physics · Physics 2019-09-12 Stanislaw Makarchuk , Vasco C. Braz , Nuno A. M. Araújo , Lena Ciric , Giorgio Volpe

Bacteria possess diverse mechanisms to regulate their motility in response to environmental and physiological signals, enabling them to navigate complex habitats and adapt their behavior. Among these mechanisms, interspecies recognition…

Populations and Evolution · Quantitative Biology 2025-12-01 Mattia Mattei , David Soriano Paños , Mahantesh Halappanavar , Alex Arenas

Biofilm infections on medical implants are difficult to eradicate because insufficient nutrient availability promotes antibiotic-tolerant persister cells that survive treatment and reseed growth. Existing mathematical models usually omit…

Populations and Evolution · Quantitative Biology 2025-09-23 Parna Mandal , Nigel J. Mottram , Sean McGinty

We propose a model of antibiotic diffusion through a bacterial biofilm when diffusion and/or absorption barriers develop in the biofilm. The idea of this model is: We deduce details of the diffusion process in a medium in which direct…

Biological Physics · Physics 2020-09-23 Tadeusz Kosztołowicz , Ralf Metzler

Biofilms are antibiotic-resistant bacterial aggregates that grow on moist surfaces and can trigger hospital-acquired infections. They provide a classical example in biology where the dynamics of cellular communities may be observed and…

Biological Physics · Physics 2015-02-24 D. R. Espeso , A. Carpio , B. Einarsson

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,…

Biological Physics · Physics 2026-05-29 Wenqiao Jiao , David Scheidweiler , Nolwenn Delouche , Alberto Guadagnini , Pietro de Anna

Bacterial biofilms cost an enormous amount of resources in the health, medical, and industrial sectors. To understand early biofilm formation, beginning from planktonic states of active bacterial suspensions (such as Escherichia coli) to…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2021-12-07 Chamkor Singh

Soft surfaces, spanning vastly different environmental and biomedical settings, are frequently colonised by surface-associated bacteria. Yet, how soft surfaces govern bacterial dynamics and their self-organisation into colonies remains…

Biological Physics · Physics 2025-12-29 Garima Rani , G. H. Philipp Nguyen , René Wittmann , Hartmut Löwen , Anupam Sengupta

This study explores the application of elongated particle interaction models, traditionally used in liquid crystal phase research, in the context of early bacterial biofilm development. Through computer simulations using an agent-based…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-11-05 Gabriel Santos-Díaz , Álvaro Rodríguez-Rivas , Alejandro Cuetos

Biofilms are bacterial aggregates encased in a self-produced polymeric matrix which attach to moist surfaces and are extremely resistant to chemicals and antibiotics. Recent experiments show that their structure is defined by the interplay…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2024-01-17 Ana Carpio , Elena Cebrian , Perfecto Vidal

Biofilms are communities of bacteria adhered to surfaces. Recently, biofilms of rod-shaped bacteria were observed at single-cell resolution and shown to develop from a disordered, two-dimensional layer of founder cells into a…

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…

Quantitative Methods · Quantitative Biology 2021-10-20 Mohammad Pousti , MirPouyan Zarabadi , Mehran Abbaszadeh Amirdehi , François Paquet-Mercier , Jesse Greener

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…

Biological Physics · Physics 2017-01-13 Fred F. Farrell , Matti Gralka , Oskar Hallatschek , Bartlomiej Waclaw

Biofilms, bacteria cells surrounded by a self-produced polymeric matrix, are common on medical devices and lead to many hospital infections. The biofilm lifecycle includes disassembly and dispersion, where bacteria clusters detach from the…

Quantitative Methods · Quantitative Biology 2026-05-18 Yuehui Xu , Jasmine A. F. Kreig , Zhuoran Wang , Elizabeth J. Stewart , Rayanne A. Luke , Sarah D. Olson

We model an enclosed system of bacteria, whose motility-induced phase separation is coupled to slow population dynamics. Without noise, the system shows both static phase separation and a limit cycle, in which a rising global population…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2017-11-08 Tobias Grafke , Michael E. Cates , Eric Vanden-Eijnden