Swimming and crawling of Euglena gracilis: a tale with many twists
Schedule
Wednesday, June 9, 2021
15:00 UTC
Antonio De Simone
Prof
SISSA
Host: BioActive Fluids
Recording
Open recording
Event Information
Recording
Available
Host
BioActive Fluids
Duration
70 minutes
Abstract
Euglena gracilis is an interesting unicellular protist, also because it can adopt different motility strategies: swimming by flagellar propulsion, or crawling thanks to large amplitude shape changes of the whole body (a behavior known as “metaboly”, or “amoeboid motion”). Swimming trajectories are helical. The are powered by the beating of a single emerging flagellum, which spans non-planar waveforms in the shape of a twisted lasso. Finally the harmoniously coordinated shape changes that make metaboly possible, reminiscent of peristaltic waves, arise form the relative sliding of its pellicle strips, resulting in twisted helical bundles. We will report on the most recent findings on these interconnected topics, for which helical shapes provide a striking fil rouge.
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