Journal
BIOPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 98, Issue 1, Pages 12-17Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2009.09.044
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Funding
- National Science Foundation [NSEC EEC-0425626]
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To study the swimming of a peritrichous bacterium such as Escherichia coli, which is able to change its swimming direction actively, we simulate the run-and-tumble motion by using a bead-spring model to account for: 1), the hydrodynamic and the mechanical interactions among the cell body and multiple flagella; 2), the reversal of the rotation of a flagellum in a tumble; and 3), the associated polymorphic transformations of the flagellum. Because a flexible hook connects the cell body and each flagellum, the flagella can take independent orientations with respect to the cell body. This simulation reproduces the experimentally observed behaviors of E coli, namely, a three-dimensional random-walk trajectory in run-and-tumble motion and steady clockwise swimming near a wall. We show that the polymorphic transformation of a flagellum in a tumble facilitates the reorientation of the cell, and that the time-averaged flow-field near a cell in a run has double-layered helical streamlines, with a time-dependent flow magnitude large enough to affect the transport of surrounding chemoattractants.
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