Related papers: Bacterial swimming and accumulation on endothelial…
Understanding flow and transport of bacteria in porous media is crucial to technologies such as bioremediation, biomineralization or enhanced oil recovery. While physicochemical bacteria filtration is well-documented, recent studies showed…
Run-and-tumble is a common but vital strategy that bacteria employ to explore environment suffused with boundaries, as well as to escape from entrapment. In this study we reveal how this strategy and the resulting dynamical behavior can be…
At sufficiently high concentrations, motile bacteria suspended in fluids exhibit a range of ordered and disordered collective motions. Here we explore the combined effects of confinement, periodicity and curvature induced by the active…
Controlling the swimming behavior of bacteria is crucial, for example, to prevent contamination of ducts and catheters. We show the bacteria modeled by deformable microswimmers can accumulate in flows through straight microchannels either…
It is well known that flagellated bacteria swim in circles near surfaces. However, recent experiments have shown that a sulfide-oxidizing bacterium named Thiovulum majus can transition from swimming in circles to a surface bound state where…
Biopolymers are vital structures for many living organisms; for a variety of bacteria, adhesion polymers play a crucial role for the initiation of colonization. Some bacteria express, on their surface, attachment organelles (pili) that…
The physical mechanism of microbial motion near solid-liquid interfaces is crucial for understanding various biological phenomena and developing ecological applications. However, limited works have been conducted on the swimming behavior of…
Escherichia coli and other bacteria use rotating helical filaments to swim. Each cell typically has about four filaments, which bundle or disperse depending on the sense of motor rotation. To study the bundling process, we built a…
We studied the swimming of \textit{Escherichia coli} bacteria in the vicinity of the critical point in a solution of the non-ionic surfactant \chem{C_{12}E_{5}} in buffer solution. In phase contrast microscopy, each swimming cell produces a…
Many organisms form colonies for a transient period of time to withstand environmental pressure. Bacterial biofilms are a prototypical example of such behavior. Despite significant interest across disciplines, physical mechanisms governing…
Persistent motion of microswimmers near boundaries is known to result in surface accumulation. Recently it was shown experimentally that surface accumulation of microswimmers is impacted primarily by steric forces and short-ranged…
Micro-organisms usually can swim in their liquid environment by flagellar or ciliary beating. In this numerical work, we analyze the influence of flagellar beating on the orbits of a swimming cell in a shear flow. We also calculate the…
Bacteria often exhibit upstream swimming, which can cause the contamination of biomedical devices and the infection of organs including the urethra or lungs. This process, called rheotaxis, has been studied extensively in Newtonian fluids.…
Understanding how growth induces form is a longstanding biological question. Many studies concentrated on the shapes of plant cells, fungi or bacteria. Some others have shown the importance of the mechanical properties of bacterial walls…
The flagellated bacterium Escherichia coli is increasingly used experimentally as a self-propelled swimmer. To obtain meaningful, quantitative results that are comparable between different laboratories, reproducible protocols are needed to…
Suspensions of motile cells are model systems for understanding the unique mechanical properties of living materials which often consist of ensembles of self-propelled particles. We present here a quantitative comparison of theory against…
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…
The persistent dynamics of active particles makes them explore extended portions of an obstacle's boundary during collisions. From impact to escape, the net applied forces depend on the curvature of the wall and increase in the presence of…
Cellular appendages such as cilia and flagella represent universal tools enabling cells and microbes, among other essential functionalities, to propel themselves in diverse environments. In its planktonic, i.e. freely swimming, state the…
Collective behavior of bacterial colonies plays critical roles in adaptability, survivability, biofilm expansion and infection. We employ an individual-based model of an interstitial biofilm to study emergent pattern formation based on the…