Travelling waves in hybrid chemotaxis models

Benjamin Franz, Chuan Xue, Kevin J. Painter, Radek Erban*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Citations (Scopus)
44 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Hybrid models of chemotaxis combine agent-based models of cells with partial differential equation models of extracellular chemical signals. In this paper, travelling wave properties of hybrid models of bacterial chemotaxis are investigated. Bacteria are modelled using an agent-based (individual-based) approach with internal dynamics describing signal transduction. In addition to the chemotactic behaviour of the bacteria, the individual-based model also includes cell proliferation and death. Cells consume the extracellular nutrient field (chemoattractant), which is modelled using a partial differential equation. Mesoscopic and macroscopic equations representing the behaviour of the hybrid model are derived and the existence of travelling wave solutions for these models is established. It is shown that cell proliferation is necessary for the existence of non-transient (stationary) travelling waves in hybrid models. Additionally, a numerical comparison between the wave speeds of the continuum models and the hybrid models shows good agreement in the case of weak chemotaxis and qualitative agreement for the strong chemotaxis case. In the case of slow cell adaptation, we detect oscillating behaviour of the wave, which cannot be explained by mean-field approximations.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)377-400
Number of pages24
JournalBulletin of Mathematical Biology
Volume76
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2014

Keywords

  • Bacterial chemotaxis
  • Hybrid model
  • Travelling wave

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Neuroscience
  • Computational Theory and Mathematics
  • General Mathematics
  • Pharmacology
  • Immunology
  • General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
  • General Environmental Science

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