Stress anisotropy in confined populations of growing rods

Abstract

A central feature of living matter is its ability to grow and multiply. The mechanical activity associated with growth produces both macroscopic flows shaped by confinement, and striking self-organization phenomena, such as orientational order and alignment, which are particularly prominent in populations of rod-shaped bacteria due to their nematic properties. However, how active stresses, passive mechanical interactions and flow-induced effects interact to give rise to the observed global alignment patterns remains elusive. Here, we study in silico colonies of growing rod-shaped particles of different aspect ratios confined in channel-like geometries. A spatially resolved analysis of the stress tensor reveals a strong relationship between near-perfect alignment and an inversion of stress anisotropy for particles with large length-to-width ratios. We show that, in quantitative agreement with an asymptotic theory, strong alignment can lead to a decoupling of active and passive stresses parallel and perpendicular to the direction of growth, respectively. We demonstrate the robustness of these effects in a geometry that provides less restrictive confinement and introduces natural perturbations in alignment. Our results illustrate the complexity arising from the inherent coupling between nematic order and active stresses in growing active matter, which is modulated by geometric and configurational constraints due to confinement.

Microdomains and stress distributions in bacterial monolayers on curved interfaces

“…More recent simulations of a similar setup have produced a model for stress distribution in highly-aligned columns of cells, where the parallel and perpendicular components of stress decouple. 31 While our system is much more confined, the columnar model still sheds light on the stress behavior of high-order cells in microdomains compared to that of loworder cells. Columns of high-order cells compressed at both ends can distribute extensional stress evenly throughout the column, while disordered cells have no way to distribute their stress without reorganizing their local geometry.…”

“…Other fundamental differences between granular and continuous nematics in more highly aligned systems have recently been discovered as well. 31 The partially granular nature of a bacterial monolayer is clearly of great importance to understanding its collective behavior.…”