Related papers: Mechanical Interactions Govern Self-Organized Orde…
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…
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…
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…
The evolutionary success of bacteria lies in their ability to form complex surface-associated communities in diverse biophysical settings. However, it remains poorly understood how compliance of soft surfaces, measured in terms of their…
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…
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…
Bacteria build multicellular communities termed biofilms, which are often encased in a self-secreted extracellular matrix that gives the community mechanical strength and protection against harsh chemicals. How bacteria assemble distinct…
Advances in synthetic biology allow us to engineer bacterial collectives with pre-specified characteristics. However, the behavior of these collectives is difficult to understand, as cellular growth and division as well as extra-cellular…
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…
Mechanical interactions among cells in a growing microbial colony can significantly influence the colony's spatial genetic structure and, thus, evolutionary outcomes such as the fates of rare mutations. Here, we computationally investigate…
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…
During colony growth, complex interactions regulate the bacterial orientation, leading to the formation of large-scale ordered structures, including topological defects and microdomains. These structures may benefit bacterial strains,…
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…
In nature, microorganisms must often cope with hostile environmental conditions. To do so they have developed sophisticated cooperative behavior and intricate communication capabilities, such as: direct cell-cell physical interactions via…
Cells self-organize into functional, ordered structures during tissue morphogenesis, a process that is evocative of colloidal self-assembly into engineered soft materials. Understanding how inter-cellular mechanical interactions may drive…
We investigate the emergence of global alignment in colonies of dividing rod-shaped cells under confinement. Using molecular dynamics simulations and continuous modeling, we demonstrate that geometrical anisotropies in the confining…
Bacteria commonly live in structured communities that affect human health and influence ecological systems. Heterogeneous populations, such as motile and non-motile populations, often coexist in bacteria communities. Motile subpopulations…
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…
Bacterial colonies are a well-known example of living active matter, exhibiting collective behaviors such as nematic alignment and collective motion that play an important role in the spread of microbial infections. While the underlying…