Bacterial swarmer cells in confinement: a mesoscale hydrodynamic simulation study

Abstract

A wide spectrum of Peritrichous bacteria undergo considerable physiological changes when they are inoculated onto nutrition-rich surfaces and exhibit a rapid and collective migration denoted as swarming. Thereby, the length of such swarmer cells and their number of flagella increases substantially. In this article, we investigated the properties of individual E. coli-type swarmer cells confined between two parallel walls via mesoscale hydrodynamic simulations, combining molecular dynamics simulations of the swarmer cell with the multiparticle particle collision dynamics approach for the embedding fluid. E. coli-type swarmer cells are three-times longer than their planktonic counter parts, but their flagella density is comparable. By varying the wall separation, we analyze the confinement effect on the flagella arrangement, on the distribution of cells in the gap between the walls, and on the cell dynamics. We find only a weak dependence of confinement on the bundle structure and dynamics. The distribution of cells in the gap changes from a geometry-dominated behavior for very narrow to fluid-dominated behavior for wider gaps, where cells are preferentially located in the gap center for narrower gaps and stay preferentially next to one of the walls for wider gaps. Dynamically, the cells exhibit a wide spectrum of migration behaviors, depending on their flagella bundle arrangement, and ranges from straight swimming to wall rolling.