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Three-dimensional Patterning of Engineered Biofilms with a Do-it-yourself Bioprinter

Three-dimensional Patterning of Engineered Biofilms with a Do-it-yourself Bioprinter

Published on: May 16, 2019

Biofilms as self-shaping growing nematics.

Japinder Nijjer¹, Changhao Li², Mrityunjay Kothari^3,4

¹Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.

|July 26, 2024

Summary

Living nematics, active materials that consume energy, can actively shape their boundaries. Bacterial biofilms demonstrate how growth-induced stresses regulate internal architecture and cell organization.

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Area of Science:

Soft Matter Physics
Biophysics
Materials Science

Background:

Active nematics are nonequilibrium systems exhibiting emergent behavior driven by energy consumption.
Their ordering and dynamics are sensitive to boundary conditions, similar to passive liquid crystals.
Active nematics can potentially regulate their boundaries via self-generated stresses.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how three-dimensional living nematics actively shape boundaries and regulate internal architecture.
To model bacterial biofilms confined by hydrogels as a system for studying growth-induced stresses.
To understand the relationship between boundary evolution, stress anisotropy, and emergent properties like cell ordering and topological defects.

Main Methods:

Utilized bacterial biofilms confined within a hydrogel as a model system.
Observed shape transitions (domes to lenses) influenced by environmental stiffness and cell-substrate friction.
Developed a theoretical model incorporating confinement and interfacial forces to explain shape transitions.

Main Results:

Demonstrated active boundary shaping and internal architecture regulation through growth-induced stresses in living nematics.
Identified a sharp transition in biofilm shape correlating with environmental changes.
Showed that boundary evolution and stress anisotropy dictate cell orientation and topological defect emergence.

Conclusions:

Living nematics can actively control their boundaries and internal organization via growth-induced stresses.
Biofilm shape transitions are governed by a balance between confinement and interfacial forces.
Findings offer insights for engineering microbial consortia with programmable material properties.