Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 29: Posters - Multi-Cellular Systems

BP 29.11: Poster

Tuesday, March 21, 2017, 14:00–16:00, P2-EG

Scaling of peristaltic waves in slime moulds by a feedback between actin contractions and flow — •Jean-Daniel Julien, Natalie Andrew, and Karen Alim — Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen, Germany

The coordination of movements over macroscopic organisms laking in any neural circuit, such as slime moulds, fungi or plants, is a fascinating yet poorly understood phenomenon. Plasmodial slime moulds grow as networks of tubes whose extent can vary on several orders of magnitude. The coordinated contractions of the tubes lead to the transport of biomass and nutrients over the network. Recent studies of P. polycephalum have demonstrated that those waves of contraction scale with the size of the organism in order to optimise the transport. How such a giant cell can perform this scaling independently of its size is unclear. F. Septica, another slime mould, displays similar patterns of contractions, and also builds simple networks constituted of a single loop, thus making it ideal to theoretical analysis. By modelling the turnover of the actin cortex at the periphery of the tube and the flow generated by the contractions, we show that a positive feedback between the flow and the wavelength of the peristaltic wave can explain how the mechanical wave scales with the extent of the network.