Date
Wed, 15 Feb 2012
Time
10:15 - 11:15
Location
OCCAM Common Room (RI2.28)
Speaker
Chuan Xue
Organisation
Ohio State University

Mathematical models of chemotactic movement of bacterial populations are often written as systems of partial differential equations for the densities of bacteria and concentrations of extracellular signaling chemicals. This approach has been employed since the seminal work of Keller and Segel in the 1970s [Keller and Segel, J. Theor. Biol., 1971]. The system has been shown to permit travelling wave solutions which correspond to travelling band formation in bacterial colonies, yet only under specific criteria, such as a singularity in the chemotactic sensitivity function as the signal approaches zero. Such a singularity generates infinite macroscopic velocities that ar biologically unrealistic. Here we present a microscopic model that takes into consideration relevant details of the intracellular processes while avoiding the singularity in the chemotactic sensitivity. We show that this model permits travelling wave solutions and predicts the formation of other bacterial patterns such as radial and spiral streams. We also present connections of this microscopic model with macroscopic models of bacterial chemotaxis. This is joint work with Radek Erban, Benjamin Franz, Hyung Ju Hwang, and Kevin J.

Painter.

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