Dresden 2020 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 17: Poster V
BP 17.26: Poster
Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 14:00–16:00, P2/1OG
Rectification of Bacterial Diffusion in Microfluidic Labyrinths — •Ariane Weber1,2, Marco Bahrs3, Zahra Alirezaeizanjani3, Xingyu Zhang1,4, Carsten Beta3, and Vasily Zaburdaev1,4 — 1Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Deutschland — 2Max-Planck-Institut für Menschheitsgeschichte, Jena, Deutschland — 3Universität Potsdam, Deutschland — 4Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin, Erlangen, Deutschland
Bacteria are able to explore large areas and move through complex environments. Both are of importance in various fields ranging from medicine over ecological sciences to industrial processes. In complex environments, bacteria interact with their surroundings and are strongly guided by confinement. To investigate how the dispersal of bacteria can be augmented by confinement, we study the long-term dispersal of bacteria which exhibit the run-and-tumble motility pattern in microfluidic labyrinths. Here we focus on two labyrinths made of obstacles regularly arranged in a square and a hexagonal lattice. We present an analytical description of the bacterial dispersal and numerical simulations of the underlying random walk for both geometries. To validate our theoretical predictions, we compare our results to experimental data of E. coli bacteria swimming through microfluidic labyrinths. Both in theory and experiments we observe enhanced dispersal of bacteria in labyrinths as compared to freely swimming cells for realistic motility and labyrinth parameters. For an extended initial period, the dispersal exhibits non-Gaussian diffusion, where the geometry of the labyrinth is imprinted in the bacterial density profiles.