Swimming of peritrichous bacteria is enabled by an elastohydrodynamic instability

Emily E. Riley, Debasish Das, Eric Lauga*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Citations (Scopus)
32 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Peritrichously-flagellated bacteria, such as Escherichia coli, self-propel in fluids by using specialised motors to rotate multiple helical filaments. The rotation of each motor is transmitted to a short flexible segment called the hook which in turn transmits it to a flagellar filament, enabling swimming of the whole cell. Since multiple motors are spatially distributed on the body of the organism, one would expect the propulsive forces from the filaments to push against each other leading to negligible swimming. We use a combination of computations and theory to show that the swimming of peritrichous bacteria is enabled by an elastohydrodynamic bending instability occurring for hooks more flexible than a critical threshold. Using past measurements of hook bending stiffness, we demonstrate how real bacteria are safely on the side of the instability that promotes systematic swimming.

Original languageEnglish
Article number10728
Number of pages7
JournalScientific Reports
Volume8
Issue number1
Early online date16 Jul 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2018

Keywords

  • escherichia coli
  • bacteria
  • flagellar filament

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