活性物质
曲率
图案形成
多细胞生物
形态发生
化学物理
生物物理学
形状变化
纳米技术
物理
生物系统
材料科学
生物
几何学
生物化学
数学
基因
遗传学
细胞生物学
作者
Haoran Xu,Mehrana R. Nejad,Julia M. Yeomans,Yilin Wu
标识
DOI:10.1073/pnas.2219708120
摘要
Interaction between active materials and the boundaries of geometrical confinement is key to many emergent phenomena in active systems. For living active matter consisting of animal cells or motile bacteria, the confinement boundary is often a deformable interface, and it has been unclear how activity-induced interface dynamics might lead to morphogenesis and pattern formation. Here, we studied the evolution of bacterial active matter confined by a deformable boundary. We found that an ordered morphological pattern emerged at the interface characterized by periodically spaced interfacial protrusions; behind the interfacial protrusions, bacterial swimmers self-organized into multicellular clusters displaying +1/2 nematic defects. Subsequently, a hierarchical sequence of transitions from interfacial protrusions to creeping branches allowed the bacterial active drop to rapidly invade surrounding space with a striking self-similar branch pattern. We found that this interface patterning is geometrically controlled by the local curvature of the interface, a phenomenon we denote as collective curvature sensing. Using a continuum active model, we revealed that the collective curvature sensing arises from enhanced active stresses near high-curvature regions, with the active length scale setting the characteristic distance between the interfacial protrusions. Our findings reveal a protrusion-to-branch transition as a unique mode of active matter invasion and suggest a strategy to engineer pattern formation of active materials.
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