Effects of swimming environment on bacterial motility

Swimming trajectories of bacteria can be altered by environmental conditions, such as background flow and physical barriers, that limit the free swimming of bacteria. We present a comprehensive model of a bacterium that consists of a rod-shaped cell body and a flagellum which is composed of a motor, a hook, and a filament. The elastic flagellum is modeled based on the Kirchhoff rod theory, the cell body is considered to be a rigid body, and the hydrodynamic interaction of a bacterium near a wall is described by regularized Stokeslet formulation combined with the image system. We consider three environmental conditions: (1) a rigid surface is placed horizontally and there is no shear flow, (2) a shear fluid flow is present and the bacterium is near the rigid surface, and (3) while the bacterium is near the rigid surface and is under shear flow, an additional sidewall which is perpendicular to the rigid surface is placed. Each environmental state modifies the swimming behavior. For the first condition, there are two modes of motility, trap and escape, whether the bacterium stays near the surface or moves away from the surface as we vary the physical and geometrical properties of the model bacterium. For the second condition, there exists a threshold of shear rate that classifies the motion into two types of paths in which the bacterium takes either a periodic coil trajectory or a linear trajectory. For the last condition, the bacterium takes upstream motility along the sidewall for lower shear rates and downstream motility for larger shear flow rates.

Automated summary

Environmental conditions can alter the swimming behavior of bacteria, and this behavior depends on the physical and geometrical properties of the bacteria. By considering different environmental conditions, we can observe the different modes of bacterial motility.