Regensburg 2019 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 6: Active Matter A (joint session DY/CPP)

CPP 6.9: Talk

Monday, April 1, 2019, 12:00–12:15, H20

Emergent biomechanics in growing bacterial colonies — •Anupam Sengupta — Physics of Living Matter Group, Physics and Materials Science Research Unit, University of Luxembourg

Bacterial colonies, known to mediate key ecological and industrial processes, constitute a class of active matter within which geometry, order, and topology emerge spontaneously over the lifespan of a colony. Although numerous studies have been carried out on growing colonies, so far we have lacked a comprehensive biomechanical framework that could capture the cell-to-colony dynamics and the consequences thereof. In this talk I will present recent results [1] obtained by combining micro-scale experiments, molecular dynamics simulations, and continuous modeling, that capture the continuous evolution of the geometry, order and topology in a growing colony of non-motile strain of E.coli bacteria. We reveal how steric forces between neighboring cells (favoring cell alignment), compete with the extensile stresses due to the cell growth (reducing the local order), leading to emergent biomechanics within the growing colony: spontaneous hydrodynamic flows, anisotropy of internal stresses, and emergent motility due to non-motile cells. The results indicate at activity-driven cell-cell communications preceding biofilm formation, and can be extended beyond bacterial communities, for instance, to study mammalian cells, many of which exist as non-motile elongated phenotypes.

[1] Geometry and Mechanics of Microdomains in Growing Bacterial Colonies: Z. You, D. Pearce, A. Sengupta*, and L. Giomi*, Phys. Rev. X 8, 031065, 2018.