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Active Spaghetti: Collective Organization in Cyanobacteria

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Mazza,  Marco G.
Group Non-equilibrium soft matter, Department of Dynamics of Complex Fluids, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Max Planck Society;

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PhysRevLett.131.158303.pdf
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Citation

Faluweki, M. K., Cammann, J., Mazza, M. G., & Goehring, L. (2023). Active Spaghetti: Collective Organization in Cyanobacteria. Physical Review Letters, 131: 158303. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.158303.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000D-F830-5
Abstract
Filamentous cyanobacteria can show fascinating examples of nonequilibrium self-organization, which, however, are not well understood from a physical perspective. We investigate the motility and collective organization of colonies of these simple multicellular lifeforms. As their area density increases, linear chains of cells gliding on a substrate show a transition from an isotropic distribution to bundles of filaments arranged in a reticulate pattern. Based on our experimental observations of individual behavior and pairwise interactions, we introduce a nonreciprocal model accounting for the filaments' large aspect ratio, fluctuations in curvature, motility, and nematic interactions. This minimal model of active filaments recapitulates the observations, and rationalizes the appearance of a characteristic length scale in the system, based on the Péclet number of the cyanobacteria filaments.