Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 119, Issue 24, Pages -Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2122269119
Keywords
chemotaxis; active matter; caging; microswimmers; self-propelling droplets
Categories
Funding
- German Research Foundation [MA 6330/1]
- Max Planck School Matter to Life
- MaxSynBio Consortium - Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany
- Max Planck Society
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Communication through chemical signaling is a common feature in biological self-organization. In this study, self-propelling droplets are used as a model to investigate how chemically active particles modify their environment and communicate with each other. The findings show how this communication mechanism leads to a transient dynamical arrest in active emulsions and provide insights into the navigation strategy shaped by negative autochemotaxis.
A common feature of biological self-organization is how active agents communicate with each other or their environment via chemical signaling. Such communications, mediated by self-generated chemical gradients, have consequences for both individual motility strategies and collective migration patterns. Here, in a purely physicochemical system, we use self-propelling droplets as a model for chemically active particles that modify their environment by leaving chemical footprints, which act as chemorepulsive signals to other droplets. We analyze this communication mechanism quantitatively both on the scale of individual agent-trail collisions as well as on the collective scale where droplets actively remodel their environment while adapting their dynamics to that evolving chemical landscape. We show in experiment and simulation how these interactions cause a transient dynamical arrest in active emulsions where swimmers are caged between each other's trails of secreted chemicals. Our findings provide insight into the collective dynamics of chemically active particles and yield principles for predicting how negative autochemotaxis shapes their navigation strategy.
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