Regensburg 2004 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

AKB: Biologische Physik

AKB 50: Poster Session "Biological Physics"

AKB 50.118: Poster

Friday, March 12, 2004, 10:30–13:00, B

Analysis of Spatiotemporal Data Sets in Dictyostelium — •Christiane Hilgardt¹, Marc-Thorsten Hütt², and Stefan C. Müller¹ — ¹Otto-von-Guericke Universität Magdeburg, Institut für Experimentelle Physik, Abteilung Biophysik, Universitätsplatz 2, 39106 Magdeburg — ²Technische Universität Darmstadt, Institut für Botanik, Arbeitsgruppe Theoretische Biologie und Bioinformatik, Schnittspahnstraße 3, 64287 Darmstadt

We investigate reaction-diffusion waves in the slime mould Dictyostelium with spatiotemporal analysis filters, [1, 2, 3]. Our hypothesis is that the spatial distribution of cell properties determines the architecture of structures in later morphogenetic stages, e.g. aggregation streams. Our investigations address the constructive role of variability in biological structure formation. To this goal we visualize local inhomogeneities in fluctuations, which allow to distinguish between fast and directed dynamics. We correlate extremal behavior with later structures. In particular, we focus on the borders between the different states of an excitable medium (excitable, excited and refractory) to evaluate biological variability as the No-dqroughnessNo-dq of these border lines. First results support our hypothesis. The spatial distribution of our observable shows an elevated correlation with the position of later aggregation streams. Furthermore, methods of information theory and estimation theory from sequence analysis are developed and applied to the spatiotemporal data sets. [1] Müller S. C. et al. (1998) Biophys. Chem. 72: 37-47. [2] Hütt M.-Th., Neff R. (2001) Physica A 289: 498-516. [3] Hütt M.-Th. et al. (2002) Phys. Rev. E. 66: 26117.