Coordinated Beating of Algal Flagella is Mediated by Basal Coupling
Kirsty Y. Wan, Raymond E. Goldstein

TL;DR
This paper investigates how basal body coupling and hydrodynamic interactions coordinate flagella in unicellular algae, revealing that internal cellular mechanisms significantly influence synchronization beyond fluid dynamics alone.
Contribution
It demonstrates that basal body coupling within cells plays a crucial role in flagellar synchronization, supplementing hydrodynamic interactions, and explores how cellular architecture affects flagellar coordination.
Findings
Basal body coupling affects flagellar synchronization.
Hydrodynamic interactions alone are insufficient for full coordination.
Cellular architecture influences flagellar gait patterns.
Abstract
Cilia and flagella often exhibit synchronized behavior; this includes phase locking, as seen in {\it Chlamydomonas}, and metachronal wave formation in the respiratory cilia of higher organisms. Since the observations by Gray and Rothschild of phase synchrony of nearby swimming spermatozoa, it has been a working hypothesis that synchrony arises from hydrodynamic interactions between beating filaments. Recent work on the dynamics of physically separated pairs of flagella isolated from the multicellular alga {\it Volvox} has shown that hydrodynamic coupling alone is sufficient to produce synchrony. However, the situation is more complex in unicellular organisms bearing few flagella. We show that flagella of {\it Chlamydomonas} mutants deficient in filamentary connections between basal bodies display markedly different synchronization from the wild type. We perform micromanipulation on…
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Taxonomy
TopicsMicro and Nano Robotics · Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics · Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics
