Zhihong You1,2, Daniel J G Pearce3, Luca Giomi4. 1. Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. 2. Instituut-Lorentz, Universiteit Leiden, P.O. Box 9506, 2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands. 3. Department of Theoretical Physics, Université de Genève, 1205 Genève, Switzerland. 4. Instituut-Lorentz, Universiteit Leiden, P.O. Box 9506, 2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands. giomi@lorentz.leidenuniv.nl.
Abstract
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 environment give rise to an imbalance in the normal stresses, which, in turn, drives a collective rearrangement of the cells. This behavior crucially relies on the colony's solid-like mechanical response at short time scales and can be recovered within the framework of active hydrodynamics upon modeling bacterial colonies as growing viscoelastic gels characterized by Maxwell-like stress relaxation.
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 environment give rise to an imbalance in the normal stresses, which, in turn, drives a collective rearrangement of the cells. This behavior crucially relies on the colony's solid-like mechanical response at short time scales and can be recovered within the framework of active hydrodynamics upon modeling bacterial colonies as growing viscoelastic gels characterized by Maxwell-like stress relaxation.
Authors: James J Winkle; Bhargav R Karamched; Matthew R Bennett; William Ott; Krešimir Josić Journal: PLoS Comput Biol Date: 2021-09-22 Impact factor: 4.475