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arXiv · 2005.12070

Swimming statistics of cargo-loaded single bacteria

P. Prakash·A. Z. Abdulla·V. Singh·M. Varma
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Abstract

Burgeoning interest in the area of bacteria-powered micro robotic systems prompted us to study the dynamics of cargo transport by single bacteria. In this paper, we have studied the swimming behaviour of oil-droplets attached as a cargo to the cell bodies of single bacteria. The oil-droplet loaded bacteria exhibit super-diffusive motion which is characterized by high degree of directional persistence. Interestingly, bacteria could navigate even when loaded with oil-droplets as large as 8 microns with an effective increase in rotational drag by more than 2 orders when compared to free bacteria. Further, the directional persistence of oil-droplet loaded bacteria was independent of the cargo size.

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P. Prakash, A. Z. Abdulla, V. Singh, M. Varma. 2020-05-25. Swimming statistics of cargo-loaded single bacteria. https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.12070

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