A Point Process Model for Generating Biofilms with Realistic Microstructure and Rheology

Biofilms are communities of bacteria that exhibit a multitude of multiscale biomechanical behaviors. Recent experimental advances have lead to characterizations of these behaviors in terms of measurements of the viscoelastic moduli of biofilms grown in bioreactors and the fracture and fragmentation properties of biofilms. These properties are macroscale features of biofilms; however, a previous work by our group has shown that heterogeneous microscale features are critical in predicting biofilm rheology. In this paper we use tools from statistical physics to develop a generative statistical model of the positions of bacteria in biofilms. We show through simulation that the macroscopic mechanical properties of biofilms depend on the choice of microscale spatial model. Our key finding is that a biologically inspired model of the locations of bacteria in a biofilm is critical to the simulation of biofilms with realistic in silico mechanical properties and statistical characteristics.