BPCPPDYSOE21 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 11: Poster A: Single Molecule, Multicellular, Bioimaging, Focus Sessions, etc.
BP 11.21: Poster
Montag, 22. März 2021, 16:30–19:00, BPp
Theoretical approaches to mechanics of biofilms — •Hui-Shun Kuan1, Wolfram Pönisch2, Leander Self3, Frank Jülicher4, Michael Schmiedederg3, and Vasily Zaburdaev1 — 1Department of Biology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg — 2MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, University College London, United Kingdom — 3Institut für Theoretische Physik 1, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg — 4Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems
Mechanics of biofilms is intrinsically affected by biological processes at different scales: from the activity of molecular motors to motility, and to cell death and division. As a result, the rheological properties of these bacterial colonies are markedly different from those exhibited by systems at thermal equilibrium. In this work, motivated by biofilms of Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria, we use a continuum theory and agent-based numerical simulations to study dense bacterial colonies shaped by attractive intercellular interactions. We can describe the formation of a colony as a phase separation process while the colony itself behaves as a viscoelastic material. By studying the behaviour of the colonies under oscillatory shear, we can link their mechanical properties to the dynamics of the intercellular forces. Due to the turnover of these active forces, the colonies show a liquid-like behaviour at large times and strong shear-thinning effect under the large amplitude of the oscillatory shear. Our study provides an important insight on how the active intercellular forces define the material properties of living aggregates which can now also be tested experimentally.