RT Conference Proceedings
T1 Immersed boundary approach to biofilm spread on surfaces
A1 Carpio, Ana
A1 Gonzalez Albaladejo, Rafael
AB We propose a computational model to study the growth  and spread of bacterial biofilms on surfaces. Bacterial membranes are represented by boundaries immersed in a fluid matrix and subject to interaction forces. Growth, division and death of bacterial cells follow dynamic energy budget rules, in response to variations in environmental concentrations of nutrients, substances released by the cells and toxicants. In this way, we create, enlarge and destroy boundaries, either spherical or rod-shaped. Appropriate forces represent details of the interaction between cells, and the interaction with the environment. Numerical simulations illustrate the evolution of small biofilm seeds. We are able reproduce experimentally observed features such as a tendency of rod-shaped bacteria to align and the formation of inner gaps (due the cell death and reabsorption) which fill with fluid. We calibrated the death parameters to reach a certain aggregate size in the absence of antibiotics, as a result of a balance between dead and newborn cells (as it happens in many tissues). When we add antibiotics small necrotic regions appear at the edges. Resorting to antibiotic cocktails targeting both active cells in the outer regions and dormant cells in the inner core we succeeded in eradicating the biofilm as observed in experiments.
YR 2021
FD 2021-07
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/5110
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/5110
LA eng
NO [1] D.R. Espeso, A. Carpio, B. Einarsson, Differential growth of wrinkled biofilms, Physical Review E 91,  022710, 2015[2] D.R. Espeso, A. Carpio, E. Martinez-Garcia, V. de Lorenzo, Stenosis triggers spread of helical Pseudomonas biofilms in cylindrical flow systems,  Scientific Reports 6, 27170, 2016[3] A. Carpio, E. Cebrian, D. R. Espeso, P. Vidal,Biofilm mechanics and patterns, in Coupled Mathematical Models for Physical and  Biological Nanoscale Systems and Their Applications, Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics 232, Springer Nature 2018[4]  B. Birnir, A. Carpio,  E. Cebrian, P. Vidal, Dynamic energy budget approach to evaluate antibiotic effects on biofilms, Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation 54, 70-83, 2018[5]  A. Carpio,  E. Cebrian, P. Vidal, Biofilms as poroelastic materials, International Journal of Non-linear Mechanics 109, 1-8, 2019[6] A. Carpio, E. Cebrian, Incorporating cellular stochasticity in solid-fluid mixture biofilm models, Entropy 22, 188,  2020[7] A. Carpio, R. Gonzalez Albaladejo, Immersed boundary approach to  biofilm spread on surfaces,  Communications in  Computational Physics 31, 257-292, 2022
DS Docta Complutense
RD 1 may 2024