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Did Maxwell Dream of Electrical Bacteria?
Version 1
: Received: 1 August 2022 / Approved: 2 August 2022 / Online: 2 August 2022 (08:21:25 CEST)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Alfinito, E.; Cesaria, M.; Beccaria, M. Did Maxwell Dream of Electrical Bacteria? Biophysica 2022, 2, 281-291. Alfinito, E.; Cesaria, M.; Beccaria, M. Did Maxwell Dream of Electrical Bacteria? Biophysica 2022, 2, 281-291.
Abstract
We propose a model for bacterial Quorum Sensing based on an auxiliary electrostatic-like interaction originating from a fictitious electrical charge that represents bacteria activity. A cooperative mechanism for charge/activity exchange is introduced to implement chemotaxis and replication. The bacteria system is thus represented by means of a complex resistor network where link resistances take into account the allowed activity-flow among individuals. By explicit spatial stochastic simulations, we show that the model exhibits different quasi-realistic behaviors from colony formation to biofilm aggregation. The electrical signal associated with Quorum Sensing is analyzed in space and time and provides useful information about the colony dynamics. In particular, we analyze the transition between the planktonic and the colony phases as the intensity of Quorum Sensing is varied.
Keywords
quorum sensing; resistance random network; complex networks
Subject
Physical Sciences, Applied Physics
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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