Material properties of of Caenorhabditis elegans swimming at low Reynolds number

TL;DR

This study combines experiments and modeling to estimate the material properties of C. elegans during swimming, revealing how tissue elasticity and viscosity influence locomotion at low Reynolds numbers.

Contribution

It introduces a simple model to estimate nematode tissue properties from swimming behavior, providing new quantitative insights into muscle function and material characteristics.

Findings

Estimated Young's modulus E ≈ 3.77 kPa

Tissue viscosity η ≈ -860 Pa·s for live nematodes

Material properties are sensitive to muscle function changes

Abstract

Undulatory locomotion, as seen in the nematode \emph{Caenorhabditis elegans}, is a common swimming gait of organisms in the low Reynolds number regime, where viscous forces are dominant. While the nematode's motility is expected to be a strong function of its material properties, measurements remain scarce. Here, the swimming behavior of \emph{C.} \emph{elegans} are investigated in experiments and in a simple model. Experiments reveal that nematodes swim in a periodic fashion and generate traveling waves which decay from head to tail. The model is able to capture the experiments' main features and is used to estimate the nematode's Young's modulus $E$ and tissue viscosity $\eta$. For wild-type \emph{C. elegans}, we find $E\approx 3.77$ kPa and $\eta \approx-860$ Pa$\cdot$s; values of $\eta$ for live \emph{C. elegans} are negative because the tissue is generating rather than dissipating energy. Results show that material properties are sensitive to changes in muscle functional properties, and are useful quantitative tools with which to more accurately describe new and existing muscle mutants.