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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Motility and self-organization of gliding Chlamydomonas populations

Sebastian Till1,*, Florian Ebmeier1,2,*, Alexandros A. Fragkopoulos1,3,*, Marco G. Mazza1,4,†, and Oliver Bäumchen1,3,‡

  • 1Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS), Am Faßberg 17, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany
  • 2Department of Computer Science, Experimental Cognitive Science, University of Tübingen, Sand 13, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany
  • 3Experimental Physics V, University of Bayreuth, Universitätsstraße 30, D-95447 Bayreuth, Germany
  • 4Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Department of Mathematical Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, United Kingdom

  • *The first three authors shared first-authors.
  • †m.g.mazza@lboro.ac.uk
  • ‡oliver.baeumchen@uni-bayreuth.de
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Phys. Rev. Research 4, L042046 – Published 19 December, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L042046

Abstract

Cellular appendages such as cilia and flagella represent universal tools enabling cells and microbes, among other essential functionalities, to propel themselves in diverse environments. In its planktonic, i.e., freely swimming, state the unicellular biflagellated microbe Chlamydomonas reinhardtii employs a periodic breaststroke-like flagellar beating to displace the surrounding fluid. Another flagella-mediated motility mode is observed for surface-associated Chlamydomonas cells, which glide along the surface by means of force transduction through an intraflagellar transport machinery. Experiments and statistical motility analysis demonstrate that this gliding motility enhances clustering and supports self-organization of Chlamydomonas populations. We employ Minkowski functionals to characterize the spatiotemporal organization of the surface-associated cell monolayer. We find that simulations based on a purely mechanistic approach cannot capture the observed nonrandom cell configurations. Quantitative agreement with experimental data, however, is achieved when considering a minimal cognitive model of the flagellar mechanosensing.

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References (43)

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Phys. Rev. Research 4, L042046– Published 19 December, 2022
  • Received 27 July 2021
  • Accepted 23 November 2022
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.

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