Related papers: Diffusion of Tracer Particles in Early Growing Bio…
The diffusion of active microscopic organisms in complex environments plays an important role in a wide range of biological phenomena from cell colony growth to single organism transport. Here, we investigate theoretically and…
We investigate the obstructed motion of tracer (test) particles in crowded environments by carrying simulations of two-dimensional Gaussian random walk in model fibrinogen monolayers of different orientational ordering. The fibrinogen…
Tracer-diffusion of small molecules through dense systems of chain polymers is studied within an athermal lattice model, where hard core interactions are taken into account by means of the site exclusion principle. An approximate mapping of…
Brownian motion is essential for describing diffusion in systems ranging from simple to complex liquids. Unlike simple liquids, which consist of only a solvent, complex liquids, such as colloidal suspensions or the cytoplasm of a cell, are…
A topic of intense current investigation pursues the question how the highly crowded environment of biological cells affects the dynamic properties of passively diffusing particles. Motivated by recent experiments we report results of…
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…
We analyze the dynamics of a tracer particle embedded in a bath of hard spheres confined in a channel of varying section. By means of Brownian dynamics simulations we apply a constant force on the tracer particle and discuss the dependence…
Bacterial biofilms, surface-attached communities of cells, are in some respects similar to colloidal solids; both are densely packed with non-zero yield stresses. However, unlike non-living materials, bacteria reproduce and die, breaking…
The dynamics of a tracer particle in a glassy matrix of obstacles displays slow complex transport as the free volume approaches a critical value and the void space falls apart. We investigate the emerging subdiffusive motion of the test…
Crowded environments modify the diffusion of macromolecules, generally slowing their movement and inducing transient anomalous subdiffusion. The presence of obstacles also modifies the kinetics and equilibrium behavior of tracers. While…
The general problem of tracer diffusion in non-equilibrium baths is important in a wide range of systems, from the cellular level to geographical lengthscales. In this paper, we revisit the archetypical example of such a system: a…
Living systems at the sub-cellular, cellular, and multi-cellular level are often crowded systems that contain active particles. The active motion of these particles can also propel passive particles, which typically results in enhanced…
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.…
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…
We introduce a simulation strategy to consistently couple continuum biomembrane dynamics to the motion of discrete biological macromolecules residing within or on the membrane. The methodology is used to study the diffusion of integral…
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 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…
We study the surface diffusion of the model cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC $6803$ during the incipient stages of cell contact with a glass surface in the dilute regime. We observe a twitching motility with alternating immobile…
It was previously believed that diffusion of a tracer particle in a viscoelastic material should be of the fractional Brownian motion (fBm) type. This is due to the long-term memory in the response of such materials to mechanical…
Single-file diffusion refers to the Brownian motion in narrow channels where particles cannot pass each other. In such processes, the diffusion of a tagged particle is typically normal at short times and becomes subdiffusive at long times.…