Related papers: Structural mechanics of filamentous cyanobacteria
Filamentous cyanobacteria are one of the oldest and today still most abundant lifeforms on earth, with manifold implications in ecology and economics. Their flexible filaments, often several hundred cells long, exhibit gliding motility in…
Filamentous cyanobacteria can show fascinating examples of nonequilibrium self-organization, which however are not well-understood from a physical perspective. We investigate the motility and collective organization of colonies of these…
Many active systems are capable of forming intriguing patterns at scales significantly larger than the size of their individual constituents. Cyanobacteria are one of the most ancient and important phyla of organisms that has allowed the…
Activity can organize matter in unique configurations inaccessible to equilibrium systems, including a sundry of spiraling shapes seen in nature that range from galaxies to living tissues to fossilized stromatolites. How these dynamic yet…
Nature uses elongated shapes and filaments to build stable structures, generate motion, and allow complex geometric interactions. In this Review, we examine the role of biological filaments across different length scales. From the molecular…
Motility coupled to responsive behavior is essential for many microorganisms to seek and establish appropriate habitats. One of the simplest possible responses, reversing the direction of motion, is believed to enable filamentous…
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…
Filamentous bacteriophages such as fd-like viruses are monodisperse rod-like colloids that have well defined properties: diameter, length, rigidity, charge and chirality. Engineering those viruses leads to a library of colloidal rods which…
One of the most ancient forms of life dating to ~3.5 billion years ago, cyanobacteria are highly abundant organisms that convert light into energy and motion, often within conjoined filaments and larger colonies. We study how gradients of…
Cells contain elaborate and interconnected networks of protein polymers which make up the cytoskeleton. The cytoskeleton governs the internal positioning and movement of vesicles and organelles, and controls dynamic changes in cell…
As the next step in extraterrestrial exploration, many engineers and scientists around the country revealed their intense interest to enable multiplanetary human life, including colonizing Mars. This study proposes that architecture on Mars…
Cell walls define a cell shape in bacteria. They are rigid to resist large internal pressures, but remarkably plastic to adapt to a wide range of external forces and geometric constraints. Currently, it is unknown how bacteria maintain…
Bundles of filamentous polymers are primary structural components of a broad range of cytoskeletal structures, and their mechanical properties play key roles in cellular functions ranging from locomotion to mechanotransduction and…
A dynamic self-organized morphology is the hallmark of network-shaped organisms like slime moulds and fungi. Organisms continuously re-organize their flexible, undifferentiated body plans to forage for food. Among these organisms the slime…
Rod-like bacteria maintain their cylindrical shapes with remarkable precision during growth. However, they are also capable to adapt their shapes to external forces and constraints, for example by growing into narrow or curved confinements.…
Cell mechanical properties are fundamental to the organism but remain poorly understood. We report a comprehensive phenomenological framework for the nonlinear rheology of single fibroblast cells: a superposition of elastic stiffening and…
Many bacteria are motile by means of one or more rotating rigid helical flagella, making them the only known organism to use rotation as a means of propulsion. The rotation is supplied by the bacterial flagellar motor, a particularly…
We study a slender filament beating in a viscous fluid with novel curvature-dependent bending stiffness. Our numerical and experimental investigations reveal that such differential stiffness can sustain planar bending waves far along…
Recent advances in microscopy techniques has uncovered unique aspects of flagella-driven motility in bacteria. A remarkable example is the discovery of flagellar wrapping, a phenomenon whereby a bacterium wraps its flagellum (or flagellar…
Essentially all biology is active and dynamic. Biological entities autonomously sense, com- pute, and respond using energy-coupled ratchets that can produce force and do work. The cytoskeleton, along with its associated proteins and motors,…