ArticleNature physics2023
Biofilms as self-shaping growing nematics.
Article in Nature physics, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Anisotropic shape-shifting robotic matter enabling versatile collective behaviors.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Conformational dynamics of exopolysaccharides underlie biofilm matrix mechanics inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Physical encounters impose a consistency-amount trade-off on bacterial group formation in marine environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Boundary geometry controls a topological defect transition that determines lumen nucleation in embryonic development.Nature materials · 2026Article
- Wrinkle-like structures emerge from matrix complementarity and mechanical discontinuity in heterogenous biofilms.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2026Article
- Morphodynamics of surface-attached active drops.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Emergent collective alignment gives competitive advantage to longer cells during range expansion.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Understanding the development of bacterial colony: Physiology, new technology, and modeling.Quantitative biology (Beijing, China) · 2025Review
- Dissecting the physics of bacterial biofilms with agent-based simulations.Current opinion in solid state & materials science · 2025Article
- Surface remodeling and inversion of cell-matrix interactions underlie community recognition and dispersal in Vibrio cholerae biofilms.Nature communications · 2025Article
- The biophysical basis of bacterial colony growth.Nature physics · 2024Article
- Topological defects in multi-layered swarming bacteria.Soft matter · 2024Article
- Agent-based modeling of stress anisotropy driven nematic ordering in growing biofilms.Soft matter · 2024Article
- Cellular arrangement impacts metabolic activity and antibiotic tolerance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms.PLoS biology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Active nematics are the nonequilibrium analogue of passive liquid crystals. They consist of anisotropic units that consume free energy to drive emergent behaviour. Like liquid crystal molecules in displays, ordering and dynamics in active nematics are sensitive to boundary conditions. However, unlike passive liquid crystals, active nematics have the potential to regulate their boundaries through self-generated stresses. Here, we show how a three-dimensional, living nematic can actively shape itself and its boundary to regulate its internal architecture through growth-induced stresses, using bacterial biofilms confined by a hydrogel as a model system. We show that biofilms exhibit a sharp transition in shape from domes to lenses upon changing environmental stiffness or cell-substrate friction, which is explained by a theoretical model that considers the competition between confinement and interfacial forces. The growth mode defines the progression of the boundary, which in turn determines the trajectories and spatial distribution of cell lineages. We further demonstrate that the evolving boundary and corresponding stress anisotropy define the orientational ordering of cells and the emergence of topological defects in the biofilm interior. Our findings may provide strategies for the development of programmed microbial consortia with emergent material properties.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.