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Chlamydomonas Swims with Two “Gears” in a Eukaryotic Version of Run-and-Tumble Locomotion

2009; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Volume: 325; Issue: 5939 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1126/science.1172667

1095-9203

Marco Polin, Idán Tuval, Knut Drescher, J. P. Gollub, Raymond E. Goldstein,

Protist diversity and phylogeny

All Together Now (Sometimes) Motile cilia and flagella protrude from the surface of many eukaryotic cells. Understanding how cilia and flagella operate is important for understanding ciliated cells in metazoans, the ecology and behavior of motile microorganisms, and the mechanisms of molecular motors and signal transduction. Using very-high-speed video microscopy, Polin et al. (p. 487 ; see the Perspective by Stocker and Durham ) discovered that the biflagellated cells of the single-cell alga Chlamydomonas rheinhartii switch between synchronous beating, which keeps the cells traveling forward, and asynchronous beating, which allows the organisms to make sharp turns. This random progression occurs in the dark and allows cells to diffuse, and it may underpin directional movement toward light in the same way that the run-and-tumble behavior of prokaryotes allows them to move up chemical gradients.