Motility and self-organization of gliding Chlamydomonas populations

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Till, Sebastian ; Ebmeier, Florian ; Fragkopoulos, Alexandros ; Mazza, Marco G. ; Bäumchen, Oliver:
Motility and self-organization of gliding Chlamydomonas populations.
In: Physical Review Research. Bd. 4 (2022) Heft 4 . - L042046.
ISSN 2643-1564
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L042046

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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 bi-flagellated 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 non-random
cell configurations. Quantitative agreement with experimental data however is achieved when considering
a minimal cognitive model of the flagellar mechanosensing.