Tunable mesoscopic numerical model for bacterial biofilms

Abstract

We present a tunable mesoscale model to provide a basis for future rheological calculations of of bacterial biofilms, explicitly incorporating reversible crosslinking within the extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) matrix. Using a Dissipative Particle Dynamics framework combined with a Gillespie-inspired algorithm, bonds between polymers and bacteria dynamically form and break, capturing the intrinsically evolving nature of the network. We show that biofilm structure is governed by a competition between polymer-polymer and polymer-bacteria crosslinks, controlled by binding energy, linker availability, and bond stiffness and provide a minimal model that helps to understand the competition between both species.