A self-driven phase transition drives Myxococcus xanthus fruiting body formation

Abstract

Combining high-resolution single cell tracking experiments with numerical simulations, we show that starvation-induced fruiting body (FB) formation in Myxococcus xanthus is a phase separation driven by cells that tune their motility over time. The phase separation can be understood in terms of cell density and a dimensionless Peclet number that captures cell motility through speed and reversal frequency. Our work suggests that M. xanthus take advantage of a self-driven non-equilibrium phase transition that can be controlled at the single cell level.

References in corpus (12)

• Motility-Induced Phase Separation
• Athermal Phase Separation of Self-Propelled Particles with no Alignment
• Statistical Mechanics of Interacting Run-and-Tumble Bacteria
• A continuum theory of phase separation kinetics for active Brownian particles
• Scalar ${\varphi }^4$ field theory for active-particle phase separation
• Negative interfacial tension in phase-separated active suspensions
• Reentrant Phase Behavior in Active Colloids with Attraction
• Minimal model of active colloids highlights the role of mechanical interactions in controlling the emergent behavior of active matter
• Myxococcus xanthus gliding motors are elastically coupled to the substrate as predicted by the focal adhesion model of gliding motility
• Pattern formation mechanisms in motility mutants of Myxococcus xanthus
• Mesoscale pattern formation of self-propelled rods with velocity reversal
• Kinetics of motility-induced phase separation and swim pressure

Cited by in corpus (61)

• Statistical Mechanics of Active Ornstein Uhlenbeck Particles
• Topological defects promote layer formation in Myxococcus xanthus colonies
• Interrupted Motility Induced Phase Separation in Aligning Active Colloids
• Self-Organized Critical Coexistence Phase in Repulsive Active Particles
• Freezing a Flock: Motility-Induced Phase Separation in Polar Active Liquids
• Phase-space geometry of mass-conserving reaction-diffusion dynamics
• Clustering and flocking of repulsive chiral active particles with non-reciprocal couplings
• Phase separation and multibody effects in three-dimensional active Brownian particles
• Universality class of the motility-induced critical point in large scale off-lattice simulations of active particles
• Active Brownian Motion with Directional Reversals
• Wavelength selection by interrupted coarsening in reaction-diffusion systems
• Fluctuation-induced phase separation in metric and topological models of collective motion
• Biophysics underlying the swarm to biofilm transition
• Active phase separation: new phenomenology from non-equilibrium physics
• Analytical approach to chiral active systems: suppressed phase separation of interacting Brownian circle swimmers
• Disorder-Induced Long-Ranged Correlations in Scalar Active Matter
• Predictive local field theory for interacting active Brownian spheres in two spatial dimensions
• Critical active dynamics is captured by a colored-noise driven field theory
• Collective dynamics of active Brownian particles in three spatial dimensions: a predictive field theory
• Direction reversing active Brownian particle in a harmonic potential
• Thermodynamics of active matter: Tracking dissipation across scales
• Activity-induced phase transition in a quantum many-body system
• Morphological transitions of active Brownian particle aggregates on porous walls
• Inclusions, Boundaries and Disorder in Scalar Active Matter
• Interface roughening in nonequilibrium phase-separated systems
• Image Inversion and Uncertainty Quantification for Constitutive Laws of Pattern Formation
• Whirligig Beetles as Corralled Active Brownian Particles
• Two-dimensional active motion
• Aggregate morphology of active Brownian particles on porous, circular walls
• Theory of Capillary Tension and Interfacial Dynamics of Motility-Induced Phases
• Universal properties of repulsive self-propelled particles and attractive driven particles
• Phase Coexistence in Nonreciprocal Quorum-Sensing Active Matter
• Phase-ordering kinetics in the Allen-Cahn (Model A) class: universal aspects elucidated by electrically-induced transition in liquid crystals
• Long-range translational order and hyperuniformity in two-dimensional chiral active crystal
• Dominating Lengthscales of Zebrafish Collective Behaviour
• Phase separation of active Brownian particles on curved surfaces
• Statistical Field Theory and Effective Action Method for scalar Active Matter
• Flocking in One Dimension: Asters and Reversals
• Fluctuation-Induced First Order Transition to Collective Motion
• Dynamical structures in phase-separating non-reciprocal polar active mixtures
• Motility-induced clustering of active particles under soft confinement
• Collective behavior of squirmers in thin films
• The Mechanics of Nucleation and Growth and the Surface Tensions of Active Matter
• Collective dynamics of active dumbbells near a circular obstacle
• Phase Separation, Capillarity, and Odd Surface Flows in Chiral Active Matter
• Folding-unfolding transition of active polymer on the reconfiguration of bidirectional tangential active force
• Biased motility-induced phase separation: from chemotaxis to traffic jams
• Local polar order controls mechanical stress and triggers layer formation in developing Myxococcus xanthus colonies
• Synthetic Quorum Sensing and Absorbing Phase Transitions in Colloidal Active Matter
• AMEP: The Active Matter Evaluation Package for Python
• Emergent Gauge Symmetry in Active Brownian Matter
• Long time behavior of run-and-tumble particles in two dimensions
• Target search by active particles
• Kinetic Random-Field Nonreciprocal Ising Model
• Steady states and coarsening in one-dimensional driven Allen-Cahn system
• Active screws: Emergent active chiral nematics of spinning self-propelled rods
• Bubble formation in active binary mixture model
• Control of collective activity to crystallize an oscillator gas
• Generating consensus and dissent on massive discussion platforms with a semantic-vector model
• Random motility regulation as a generic mechanism of community formation
• Universal framework for the long-time position distribution of free active particles