Related papers: Flagellar length control in multiflagellated eukar…
Eukaryotic flagella are active structures with a complex architecture of microtubules, motor proteins and elastic links. They are capable of whiplike motions driven by motors sliding along filaments that are themselves constrained at an…
Understanding how growth induces form is a longstanding biological question. Many studies concentrated on the shapes of plant cells, fungi or bacteria. Some others have shown the importance of the mechanical properties of bacterial walls…
We introduce a formalism for the geometry of eukaryotic cells and organisms.Cells are taken to be star-convex with good biological reason. This allows for a convenient description of their extent in space as well as all manner of cell…
We investigate synchronization and metachronal-wave formation in a one-dimensional array of eukaryotic flagella using an elastohydrodynamic model. In contrast to a two-flagellum system, where only in-phase synchronization is stable, larger…
The twisting and writhing of a cell body and associated mechanical stresses is an underappreciated constraint on microbial self-propulsion. Multi-flagellated bacteria can even buckle and writhe under their own activity as they swim through…
Groups of eukaryotic cilia and flagella are capable of coordinating their beating over large scales, routinely exhibiting collective dynamics in the form of metachronal waves. The origin of this behaviour -- possibly influenced by both…
How cells regulate the number of organelles is a fundamental question in cell biology. While decades of experimental work have uncovered four fundamental processes that regulate organelle biogenesis, namely, de novo synthesis, fission,…
One approach to quantifying biological diversity consists of characterizing the statistical distribution of specific properties of a taxonomic group or habitat. Microorganisms living in fluid environments, and for whom motility is key,…
Flagellated bacteria on nutrient-rich substrates can differentiate into a swarming state and move in dense swarms across surfaces. A recent experiment measured the flow in the fluid around an Escherichia coli swarm (Wu, Hosu and Berg, 2011…
The origin and early evolution of eukaryotes are one of the major transitions in the evolution of life on earth. One of its most interesting aspects is the emergence of cellular organelles, their dynamics, their functions, and their…
Various rod-shaped bacteria such as the canonical gram negative Escherichia coli or the well-studied gram positive Bacillus subtilis divide symmetrically after they approximately double their volume. Their size at division is not constant,…
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…
Beating flagella exhibit a variety of synchronization modes. This synchrony has long been attributed to hydrodynamic coupling between the flagella. However, recent work with flagellated algae indicates that a mechanism internal to the cell,…
We illustrate shape mode analysis as a simple, yet powerful technique to concisely describe complex biological shapes and their dynamics. We characterize undulatory bending waves of beating flagella and reconstruct a limit cycle of…
Peritrichous bacteria synchronize and bundle their flagella to actively swim while disruption of the bundle leads to tumbling. It is still not known whether the number of flagella represents an evolutionary adaptation towards optimizing…
The prevalence of multicellular organisms is due in part to their ability to form complex structures. How cells pack in these structures is a fundamental biophysical issue, underlying their functional properties. However, much remains…
Motile eukaryotic cells propel themselves in viscous fluids by passing waves of bending deformation down their flagella. An infinitely long flagellum achieves a hydrodynamically optimal low-Reynolds number locomotion when the angle between…
The motility of microorganisms is influenced greatly by their hydrodynamic interactions with the fluidic environment they inhabit. We show by direct experimental observation of the bi-flagellated alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii that fluid…
In a multitude of life's processes, cilia and flagella are found indispensable. Recently, the biflagellated chlorophyte alga Chlamydomonas has become a model organism for the study of ciliary coordination and synchronization. Here, we use…
We systematically investigate how flagellar morphology governs the stability of bacterial Brownian motion, evaluating the effectiveness of a simplified chiral two-body model. This model, which effectively captures the specific bacterial…