Featured
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Article |
Viscoelastic control of spatiotemporal order in bacterial active matter
Introducing viscoelasticity by addition of DNA into the fluid surrounding a suspension of Escherichia coli produces a giant oscillating vortex with a period controllable through the DNA concentration.
- Song Liu
- , Suraj Shankar
- & Yilin Wu
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Article |
Loopy Lévy flights enhance tracer diffusion in active suspensions
A theoretical framework describing the hydrodynamic interactions between a passive particle and an active medium in out-of-equilibrium systems predicts long-range Lévy flights for the diffusing particle driven by the density of the active component.
- Kiyoshi Kanazawa
- , Tomohiko G. Sano
- & Adrian Baule
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Article |
Bacterial coexistence driven by motility and spatial competition
In mixed bacterial populations that colonize nutrient patches, a growth–migration trade-off can lead to spatial exclusion that provides an advantage to populations that become rare, thereby stabilizing the community.
- Sebastian Gude
- , Erçağ Pinçe
- & Sander J. Tans
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Letter |
Collective intercellular communication through ultra-fast hydrodynamic trigger waves
Ultra-fast hydrodynamic communication between cells emerges in colonies of Spirostomum ambiguum through the generation of long-ranged vortex flows that are sensed by neighbouring cells, leading to propagating trigger waves that coordinate the release of toxins.
- Arnold J. T. M. Mathijssen
- , Joshua Culver
- & Manu Prakash
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Letter |
Nuclear positioning facilitates amoeboid migration along the path of least resistance
Geometrically defined microenvironments are used to show that leukocytes migrate along chemokine gradients using the nucleus as a mechanical gauge to sample potential paths and identify the path of least resistance.
- Jörg Renkawitz
- , Aglaja Kopf
- & Michael Sixt
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Letter |
Vapour-mediated sensing and motility in two-component droplets
Droplets of mixed water and propylene glycol deposited on clean glass exhibit a contact angle but do not suffer from contact line pinning; their motion can be controlled by the vapour emitted from neighbouring droplets to create a variety of autonomous fluidic machines with integrated sensing and motility capabilities.
- N. J. Cira
- , A. Benusiglio
- & M. Prakash
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Letter |
A chain mechanism for flagellum growth
Growth of a flagellum outside the bacterial cell proceeds by successive subunit acquisition from the cell export machinery to form a chain that is pulled to the flagellum tip, where subunit crystallization provides the entropic force to drive the process.
- Lewis D. B. Evans
- , Simon Poulter
- & Gillian M. Fraser
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News & Views |
Push it, pull it
During migration, cells interact with their environment by exerting mechanical forces on it. A combination of two techniques shows that they do so in all three dimensions by a push–pull mechanism.
- Pascal Hersen
- & Benoît Ladoux
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Letter |
A random cell motility gradient downstream of FGF controls elongation of an amniote embryo
Most animal embryos grow through cell accumulation in a posterior growth zone, but the underlying forces are unknown. It is now proposed that posterior elongation in chicken embryos is an emergent property that arises from graded cell motility in random directions (as opposed to directed movement). This occurs in response to signalling through the fibroblast growth factor.
- Bertrand Bénazéraf
- , Paul Francois
- & Olivier Pourquié
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Letter |
Myosin II contributes to cell-scale actin network treadmilling through network disassembly
Eukaryotic cells crawl through a process in which the front of the cell is propelled forwards by the force provided by polymerization of actin filaments. These must be disassembled at the rear of the cell to allow sustained motility. It is now shown that non-muscle myosin II protein is needed for the disassembly of actin networks at the rear of crawling cells.
- Cyrus A. Wilson
- , Mark A. Tsuchida
- & Julie A. Theriot
The colloidal nature of complex fluids enhances bacterial motility