ArticleScientific reports2018
Swimming of peritrichous bacteria is enabled by an elastohydrodynamic instability.
Article in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Form and function in biological filaments: a physicist's review.Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2025Review
- Run-and-tumble dynamics ofJournal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Bacterial motility depends on a critical flagellum length and energy-optimized assembly.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- An overview of the structure and function of the flagellar hook FlgE protein.World journal of microbiology & biotechnology · 2023Review
- Flagella, Chemotaxis and Surface Sensing.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2022Article
- Upcoming flow promotes the bundle formation of bacterial flagella.Biophysical journal · 2021Article
- Hydrodynamics and direction change of tumbling bacteria.PloS one · 2021Article
- Geometrical Constraints on the Tangling of Bacterial Flagellar Filaments.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- TheProceedings. Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2019Article
- Microswimmer Propulsion by Two Steadily Rotating Helical Flagella.Micromachines · 2019Article
- The swimming of a deforming helix.The European physical journal. E, Soft matter · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Peritrichously-flagellated bacteria, such as Escherichia coli, self-propel in fluids by using specialised motors to rotate multiple helical filaments. The rotation of each motor is transmitted to a short flexible segment called the hook which in turn transmits it to a flagellar filament, enabling swimming of the whole cell. Since multiple motors are spatially distributed on the body of the organism, one would expect the propulsive forces from the filaments to push against each other leading to negligible swimming. We use a combination of computations and theory to show that the swimming of peritrichous bacteria is enabled by an elastohydrodynamic bending instability occurring for hooks more flexible than a critical threshold. Using past measurements of hook bending stiffness, we demonstrate how real bacteria are safely on the side of the instability that promotes systematic swimming.
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