BPCPPDYSOE21 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 24: Poster B: Active Biological Matter, Cell Mechanics, Systems Biology, Computational Biophysics, etc.

BP 24.2: Poster

Tuesday, March 23, 2021, 16:00–18:30, BPp

Resistive force theory and wave dynamics in swimming flagellar apparatus isolated from C. reinhardtii — Samira Goli Pozveh¹, Albert Bae², and •Azam Gholami¹ — ¹MPI for Dynamics and Self-organization, Göttingen, Germany — ²Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Rochester, USA

Cilia-driven motility and fluid transport is ubiquitous in nature and essential for many biological processes. The biflagellated micro-swimmer Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a model organism to study dynamics of flagellar synchronization. Hydrodynamic interactions, intracellular mechanical coupling or cell body rocking are believed to play crucial role in synchronization of flagellar beating in green algae. Here, we use freely swimming intact flagellar apparatus isolated from wall-less strain of Chlamydomonas to investigate wave dynamics. Our analysis in phase coordinates show that, when the frequency difference between the flagella is high (10-41% of the mean), neither mechanical coupling via basal body nor hydrodynamics interactions are strong enough to synchronize two flagella, indicating that beating frequency is perhaps controlled internally by the cell. We also examined the validity of resistive force theory for a flagellar apparatus swimming freely in the vicinity of a substrate and found a quantitative agreement between experimental data and simulations with drag anisotropy of ratio 2. Finally, using a simplified wave form, we show that by controlling phase or frequency differences between two flagella, steering can occur.