Does cell biology need physicists?

Fast, high-throughput measurement of collective behaviour in a bacterial population

Swimming bacteria explore their environment by performing a random walk, which is biased in response to, for example, chemical stimuli, resulting in a collective drift of bacterial populations towards 'a better life'. This phenomenon, called chemotaxis, is one of the best known forms of collective behaviour in bacteria, crucial for bacterial survival and virulence. Both single-cell and macroscopic assays have investigated bacterial behaviours. However, theories that relate the two scales have previously been difficult to test directly. We present an image analysis method, inspired by light scattering, which measures the average collective motion of thousands of bacteria simultaneously. Using this method, a time-varying collective drift as small as 50 nm s(-1) can be measured. The method, validated using simulations, was applied to chemotactic Escherichia coli bacteria in linear gradients of the attractant α-methylaspartate. This enabled us to test a coarse-grained minimal model of chemotaxis. Our results clearly map the onset of receptor methylation, and the transition from linear to logarithmic sensing in the bacterial response to an external chemoeffector. Our method is broadly applicable to problems involving the measurement of collective drift with high time resolution, such as cell migration and fluid flows measurements, and enables fast screening of tactic behaviours.

Thermodynamical journey in plant biology

Nonequilibrium irreversible thermodynamics constitute a meaningful point of view suitable to explore life with a rich paradigm. This analytical framework can be used to span the gap from molecular processes to plant function and shows great promise to create a holistic description of life. Since living organisms dissipate energy, exchange entropy and matter with their environment, they can be assimilated to dissipative structures. This concept inherited from nonequilibrium thermodynamics has four properties which defines a scale independent framework suitable to provide a simpler and more comprehensive view of the highly complex plant biology. According to this approach, a biological function is modeled as a cascade of dissipative structures. Each dissipative structure, corresponds to a biological process, which is initiated by the amplification of a fluctuation. Evolution of the process leads to the breakage of the system symmetry and to the export of entropy. Exporting entropy to the surrounding environment corresponds to collecting information about it. Biological actors which break the symmetry of the system and which store information are by consequence, key actors on which experiments and data analysis focus most. This paper aims at illustrating properties of dissipative structure through familiar examples and thus initiating the dialogue between nonequilibrium thermodynamics and plant biology.

Diffusive transport without detailed balance in motile bacteria: does microbiology need statistical physics?

Microbiology is the science of microbes, particularly bacteria. Many bacteria are motile: they are capable of self-propulsion. Among these, a significant class execute so-called run-and-tumble motion: they follow a fairly straight path for a certain distance, then abruptly change direction before repeating the process. This dynamics has something in common with Brownian motion (it is diffusive at large scales), and also something in contrast. Specifically, motility parameters such as the run speed and tumble rate depend on the local environment and hence can vary in space. When they do so, even if a steady state is reached, this is not generally invariant under time reversal: the principle of detailed balance, which restores the microscopic time-reversal symmetry of systems in thermal equilibrium, is mesoscopically absent in motile bacteria. This lack of detailed balance (allowed by the flux of chemical energy that drives motility) creates pitfalls for the unwary modeller. Here I review some statistical-mechanical models for bacterial motility, presenting them as a paradigm for exploring diffusion without detailed balance. I also discuss the extent to which statistical physics is useful in understanding real or potential microbiological experiments.

Blurred line between chemotactic chase and phagocytic consumption: an immunophysical single-cell perspective

An innate immune cell can sense a pathogen, either from a distance by recognizing chemoattractant stimuli or by direct physical contact. The pathogen is subsequently neutralized, which usually occurs through its phagocytic internalization. By investigating chemotaxis and phagocytosis from an immunophysical single-cell perspective, it now appears that the demarcation between these two processes is less distinct than originally thought. Several lines of evidence support this notion. First, chemotactic stimulation does not cease at the moment of initial contact between the cell and the pathogenic target. Second, even when classical chemotaxis of neutrophils is suppressed, the early cell response to contact with typical chemoattractant targets, such as zymosan, fungal spores or chemokine-coated particles, can still involve morphological attributes of chemotaxis. Recognizing that the changing morphology of motile cells is inextricably linked to physical cell behavior, this Commentary focuses on the mechanical aspects of the early response of innate immune cells to chemotactic and phagocytic stimuli. On the basis of this perspective, we propose that the combined study of chemotaxis and phagocytosis will, potentially, not only advance our grasp of the mechanisms underlying immune-cell motility but also open new lines of research that will promote a deeper understanding of the innate recognition of pathogens.