Related papers: Phototactic Decision-Making by Micro-Algae
In biological tissues, it is now well-understood that mechanical cues are a powerful mechanism for pattern regulation. While much work has focused on interactions between cells and external substrates, recent experiments suggest that cell…
Eukaryotic cells are able to sense chemical gradients in a wide range of environments. We show that, if a cell is exposed to a highly variable environment, it may gain chemotactic accuracy by expressing multiple receptor types with varying…
We show that a two-dimensional system of flocking microswimmers interacting hydrodynamically can be expressed using a Hamiltonian formalism. The Hamiltonian depends strictly on the angles between the particles and their swimming…
Eukaryotic cells are large enough to detect signals and then orient to them by differentiating the signal strength across the length and breadth of the cell. Amoebae, fibroblasts, neutrophils and growth cones all behave in this way. Little…
Diatoms are among the dominant phytoplankters in the worl's ocean, and their external silica investments, resembling artificial photonics crystal, are expected to play an active role in light manipulation. Digital holography allowed…
Cell motility underlies many biological processes, including cancer metastasis, bacterial infection, and evolutionary adaptation. We introduce a non-equilibrium single-cell motility model inspired by the generalized Langevin equation, which…
When the motion of a motile cell is observed closely, it appears erratic, and yet the combination of nonequilibrium forces and surfaces can produce striking examples of organization in microbial systems. While most of our current…
Microorganisms are known to alter their motility in response to external stimuli. A typical example is the responseknown as taxis, which includes behaviors such as moving toward a light source (positive phototaxis) or away from it(negative…
We investigate the dynamics of a colony of crawling, proliferating cells with a minimal, mechanical cell model. The cells consist of two disks, modelling the cell body and a pseudopod, connected by a finite extensible spring. The cells…
Previously published experimental work by other authors has shown that certain motile marine bacteria are able to track free swimming algae by executing a zigzag path and steering toward the algae at each turn. Here, we propose that the…
Swimming microorganisms can influence the diffusion of passive particles. The effect of this swimmer-particle interaction depends on different properties, such as the hydrodynamic field of the swimmer and the relative sizes of…
The survival of many microorganisms, like \textit{Leptospira} or \textit{Spiroplasma} bacteria, can depend on their ability to navigate towards regions of favorable viscosity. While this ability, called viscotaxis, has been observed in…
Cells can show not only spontaneous movement but also tactic responses to environmental signals. Since the former can be regarded as the basis to realize the latter, playing essential roles in various cellular functions, it is important to…
The motility of eukaryotic cells is strongly influenced by their environment, with confined cells often developing qualitatively different motility patterns from those migrating on simple two-dimensional substrates. Recent experiments,…
Microorganisms often perform chemotaxis, (i.e., sensing and moving toward a region with a higher concentration of an attractive chemical) by changing the rate of tumbling for random walk. We studied several models with internal adaptive…
Cellular development follows a stochastic yet rule-governed trajectory, though the underlying principles remain elusive. Here, we propose that cellular development follows paths of least action, aligning with foundational physical laws that…
An artificial microswimmer drifts in response to spatio-temporal modulations of an activating suspension medium. We consider two competing mechanisms capable of influencing its tactic response: angular fluctuations, which help it explore…
Efficiently balancing photochemistry and photoprotection is crucial for survival and productivity of photosynthetic organisms in the rapidly fluctuating light levels found in natural environments. The ability to respond quickly to sudden…
The existence of travelling waves for a model of concentration waves of bacteria is investigated. The model consists in a kinetic equation for the biased motion of cells following a run-and-tumble process, coupled with two…
Based on symmetry consideration of migration and shape deformations, we formulate phenomenologically the dynamics of cell crawling in two dimensions. Forces are introduced to change the cell shape. The shape deformations induce migration of…