Did Maxwell dream of electrical bacteria?

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel electrostatic-inspired model for bacterial quorum sensing, simulating colony behaviors like biofilm formation and analyzing electrical signals to understand colony dynamics.

Contribution

It presents a new complex resistor network model for bacterial interactions incorporating electrostatic-like signals and simulates colony behaviors and quorum sensing transitions.

Findings

Model reproduces colony formation and biofilm aggregation.

Electrical signals provide insights into colony dynamics.

Transition between planktonic and colony phases analyzed.

Abstract

We propose a model for bacterial Quorum Sensing based on an auxiliary electrostatic-like interac-tion originating from a fictitious electrical charge that represents bacteria activity. A cooperative mechanism for charge/activity exchange is introduced to implement chemotaxis and replication. The bacteria system is thus represented by means of a complex resistor network where link re-sistances take into account the allowed activity-flow among individuals. By explicit spatial sto-chastic simulations, we show that the model exhibits different quasi-realistic behaviors from colo-ny formation to biofilm aggregation. The electrical signal associated with Quorum Sensing is ana-lyzed in space and time and provides useful information about the colony dynamics. In particular, we analyze the transition between the planktonic and the colony phases as the intensity of Quorum Sensing is varied.