Dresden 2020 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 2: Active Matter I (joint session BP/CPP/DY)

DY 2.10: Talk

Monday, March 16, 2020, 12:30–12:45, HÜL 386

Fast vs. gradual death in assemblies of immotile growing cells — •Yoav G. Pollack, Philip Bittihn, and Ramin Golestanian — Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS), Göttingen, Germany

Cell life-cycle processes such as growth, division and death, often all happen on a similar timescale, as do the resultant mechanical and dynamical responses of the cell assembly (such as a colony, biofilm or tissue). An archetypal example is E. Coli where growth, division and the subsequent relative motion of the daughter cells all happen at roughly the same rate. However there are also examples of another type of system showing abrupt processes, including ‘snapping’ cell division in Actinobacteria and ‘explosive’ bacterial lysis.

Here we test whether going from the first type of system to the other by introducing a second fast timescale in one of the microscopic processes can affect the macroscopic mechano-dynamics, such as the homeostatic pressure. Specifically we simulate a closed 1D channel of cells that grow and divide to fill up the channel and are removed (via death or extrusion) when pressure builds up. We focus on varying the timescale of the cell removal process, keeping growth and division timescales fixed. We show a clear distinction in the macroscopic system properties between abrupt vs. gradual cell removal, such as a significant increase in the homeostatic pressure.