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Mucus is a biological gel covering the surface of several tissues andinsuring key biological functions, including as a protective barrier againstdehydration, pathogens penetration, or gastric acids. Mucus biologicalfunctioning requires a finely tuned balance between solid-like and fluid-likemechanical response, insured by reversible bonds between mucins, theglycoproteins that form the gel. In living organisms, mucus is subject tovarious kinds of mechanical stresses, e.g. due to osmosis, bacterialpenetration, coughing and gastric peristalsis. However, our knowledge of theeffects of stress on mucus is still rudimentary and mostly limited tomacroscopic rheological measurements, with no insight into the relevantmicroscopic mechanisms. Here, we run mechanical tests simultaneously tomeasurements of the microscopic dynamics of pig gastric mucus. Strikingly, wefind that a modest shear stress, within the macroscopic rheological linearregime, dramatically enhances mucus reorganization at the microscopic level, assignalled by a transient acceleration of the microscopic dynamics, by up to twoorders of magnitude. We rationalize these findings by proposing a simple yetgeneral model for the dynamics of physical gels under strain and validate itsassumptions through numerical simulations of spring networks. These resultsshed new light on the rearrangement dynamics of mucus at the microscopic scale,with potential implications in phenomena ranging from mucus clearance tobacterial and drug penetration.

Enhanced microscopic dynamics in mucus gels under a mechanical load in the linear viscoelastic regime