EAGER:Large-Scale Behavior and Collective Effects in Concentrated Bacterial Suspensions in Mucus

EAGER：粘液中浓缩细菌悬浮液的大规模行为和集体效应

• 批准号: 2140010
• 负责人: Igor Aronson
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2140010&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAGER; Large; Scale; Behavior; Collective

Motility and self-organization of active self-propelled particles in anisotropic and viscoelastic media is an active area of interdisciplinary research. Understanding the interaction between bacteria and mucus is key to developing better ways to fight the pathogen invasion at mucosal surfaces. Bacteria-mucus interaction is important to a general class of complex fluids exhibiting viscoelastic behavior and long memory effects, both biological and synthetic. By a combination of experiments and theoretical modeling the PIs will explore a fundamentally new area of bacteria-mucus interaction: what is the role of collective effects appearing at higher bacterial concentrations and how the viscoelasticity and memory of the suspending medium control the emerging collective patterns. The research will stimulate the transformative changes in experimental techniques and predictive mathematical tools for bacteria-mucus interaction and, more generally, microswimmers in complex biological fluids. The work is expected to trigger transformative understanding of how the bacteria and other motile microorganisms swim in complex biological fluids. It has multiple implications for the prevention of many bacteria-born illnesses, treatment of infertility, and developing better ways to fight the pathogen invasion at mucosal surfaces. The open-source computational algorithms will be made available to the broad scientific and engineering communities and can be run on a GPU-enabled desktop computer. Through this research the PIs will provide interdisciplinary training and education of students and postdocs who will learn theoretical techniques in applied mathematics and computational physics, as well as experimental techniques employed in biological physics and engineering. Undergraduate students from underrepresented groups will be hosted and public outreach programs will be initiated. Mucus is a viscoelastic gel coating the surfaces of cells and tissues in animal organ tracts exposed to the external environment. It serves as frontline protection against invasion and colonization of tissues by pathogens such as bacteria and viruses. In this project the PIs will significantly expand and deepen our knowledge of the emergence of large-scale behavior and collective effects in concentrated bacterial suspensions in mucus. The PIs will explore how mucus viscoelasticity, anisotropy, and long-term memory affect the properties of collective behavior and its response to imposed shear flow. To further advance the understanding, they will extend the computational model of active liquid crystals to the case of the anisotropic viscoelastic nematogenic medium with memory. This synergy of experimental and theoretical approaches will advance understanding of out-of-equilibrium collective behavior.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

主动自推进颗粒在各向异性粘弹性介质中的运动和自组织是一个活跃的跨学科研究领域。了解细菌和粘液之间的相互作用是开发更好的方法来对抗粘膜表面病原体入侵的关键。细菌-粘液相互作用对于表现出粘弹性行为和长记忆效应的生物和合成的一般类复杂流体是重要的。通过实验和理论建模相结合，PI将探索细菌-粘液相互作用的一个全新领域：在较高细菌浓度下出现的集体效应的作用是什么，以及悬浮介质的粘弹性和记忆如何控制新兴的集体模式。该研究将刺激细菌-粘液相互作用的实验技术和预测数学工具的变革，更普遍的是，复杂生物液体中的微泳者。这项工作有望引发对细菌和其他能动微生物如何在复杂的生物液体中游动的变革性理解。它对预防许多细菌性疾病、治疗不孕症以及开发更好的方法来对抗粘膜表面的病原体入侵具有多重意义。 开源计算算法将提供给广大的科学和工程界，并可以在支持GPU的台式计算机上运行。通过这项研究，PI将为学生和博士后提供跨学科的培训和教育，他们将学习应用数学和计算物理的理论技术，以及生物物理和工程中采用的实验技术。将接待来自代表性不足群体的本科生，并启动公共外联方案。粘液是一种粘弹性凝胶，覆盖在暴露于外部环境的动物器官道中的细胞和组织的表面。它作为抵抗病原体如细菌和病毒入侵和定殖组织的前线保护。在这个项目中，PI将显着扩大和深化我们的知识的出现，大规模的行为和集体效应的浓缩细菌悬浮液在粘液。PI将探索粘液粘弹性，各向异性和长期记忆如何影响集体行为的性质及其对剪切流的反应。为了进一步加深理解，他们将把活性液晶的计算模型扩展到具有记忆的各向异性粘弹向列介质的情况。这种实验和理论方法的协同作用将促进对失衡集体行为的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。