Related papers: Competing Patterns of Signaling Activity in Dictyo…

Dictyostelium discoideum (D.d.) is a widely studied amoeba due to its capabilities of development, survival, and self-organization. During aggregation it produces and relays a chemical signal (cAMP) which shows spirals and target centers.…

We present novel experimental results on pattern formation of signaling Dictyostelium discoideum amoeba in the presence of a periodic array of millimeter-sized pillars. We observe concentric cAMP waves that initiate almost synchronously at…

Unicellular organisms exhibit elaborate collective behaviors in response to environmental cues. These behaviors are controlled by complex biochemical networks within individual cells and coordinated through cell-to-cell communication.…

Chemotaxis, the movement of an organism in response to chemical stimuli, is a typical feature of many microbiological systems. In particular, the social amoeba \textit{Disctyostelium discoideum} is widely used as a model organism, but it is…

Collective behavior in cellular populations is coordinated by biochemical signaling networks within individual cells. Connecting the dynamics of these intracellular networks to the population phenomena they control poses a considerable…

The coupling of the internal mechanisms of cell polarization to cell shape deformations and subsequent cell crawling poses many interdisciplinary scientific challenges. Several mathematical approaches have been proposed to model the…

We present a simple model that describes the motion of a single chemotactic cell exposed to a traveling wave of the chemoattractant. The model incorporates two types of responses to stimulation by the chemoattractant, i.e., change in…

Swimmers and self-propelled particles are physical models for the collective behaviour and motility of a wide variety of living systems, such as bacteria colonies, bird flocks and fish schools. Such artificial active materials are amenable…

The transition from single-cell to multicellular behavior is important in early development but rarely studied. The starvation-induced aggregation of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum into a multicellular slug is known to result…

We present results of experiments on the dynamics of Dictyostelium discoideum in a novel set-up which constraints cell motion to a plane. After aggregation, the amoebae collect into round ''pancake" structures in which the cells rotate…

In this paper, we explore experimentally the phase behavior of a dense active suspension of self- propelled colloids. In addition to a solid-like and a gas-like phase observed for high and low densities, a novel cluster phase is reported at…

Recent experimental work has shown that eukaryotic cells can swim in a fluid as well as crawl on a substrate. We investigate the swimming behavior of Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae who swim by initiating traveling protrusions at the front…

Traditionally, the primary mode for locomotion of amoeboid cells was thought to be crawling on a substrate. Recently, it has been experimentally shown that \textit{Dictostelium} amoeba and neutrophils can also swim in a directed fashion.…

Chemotaxis is a ubiquitous biological phenomenon in which cells detect a spatial gradient of chemoattractant, and then move towards the source. Here we present a position-dependent advection-diffusion model that quantitatively describes the…

Eukaryotic cells are large enough to detect signals and then orient to them by differentiating the signal strength across the length and breadth of the cell. Amoebae, fibroblasts, neutrophils and growth cones all behave in this way. Little…

The behaviour of an organism often reflects a strategy for coping with its environment. Such behaviour in higher organisms can often be reduced to a few stereotyped modes of movement due to physiological limitations, but finding such modes…

Studies of cooperation in microbes often focus on one fitness component, with little information about or attention to the ecological context, and this can lead to paradoxical results. The life cycle of the social amoeba Dictyostelium…

The crawling motion of Dictyostelium discoideum on substrata involves a number of coordinated events including cell contractions and cell protrusions. The mechanical forces exerted on the substratum during these contractions have recently…

Many microorganisms use chemical `signaling' - a quintessential self-organizing strategy in non-equilibrium - that can induce spontaneous aggregation and coordination in behavior. Using synthetic signaling as a design principle, we…

Noise and spatial degrees of freedom characterize most ecosystems. Some aspects of their influence on the coevolution of populations with cyclic interspecies competition have been demonstrated in recent experiments [e.g. B. Kerr et al.,…