Effects of confinement, surface-induced orientations and strain on dynamical behaviors of bacteria in thin liquid crystalline films.

ABSTRACT: We report on the organization and dynamics of bacteria (Proteus mirabilis) dispersed within lyotropic liquid crystal (LC) films confined by pairs of surfaces that induce homeotropic (perpendicular) or hybrid (homeotropic and parallel orientations at each surface) anchoring of the LC. By using motile vegetative bacteria (3 µm in length) and homeotropically aligned LC films with thicknesses that exceed the length of the rod-shaped cells, a key finding reported in this paper is that elastic torques generated by the LC are sufficiently large to overcome wall-induced hydrodynamic torques acting on the cells, thus leading to LC-guided bacterial motion near surfaces that orient LCs. This result extends to bacteria within LC films with hybrid anchoring, and leads to the observation that asymmetric

SUBMITTER: Mushenheim PC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6365283 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature