The energy supply for eukaryotic ciliary and flagellar movement is thought to be maintained by ATP-regenerating enzymes such as adenylate kinase, creatine kinase and arginine kinase. In this study, the energy-supplying system for the ciliary movement of Paramecium caudatum was examined. Arginine kinase and adenylate kinase activities were detected in the cilia. To demonstrate that phosphoargini...

With an instrument that can record the motion of both cilia of the unicellular alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii for many hours, the behavioral differences of its two cilia have been studied to determine their specific role in phototaxis. The organism was held on a fixed micropipette with the plane of ciliary beating rotated into the imaging plane of a quadrant photodetector. The responses to squa...

Cilia are structurally and functionally diverse organelles, whose malfunction leads to ciliopathies. While recent studies have uncovered common ciliary transport mechanisms, limited information is available on the proteome of cilia, particularly that of sensory subtypes, which could provide insight into their functional and developmental diversities. In the present study, we performed proteomic...

Abstract Carpets of actively bending cilia represent arrays biological oscillators that can exhibit self-organized metachronal synchronization in the form traveling waves phase. This coordination supposedly enhances fluid transport by carpets. Using a multi-scale model calibrated an experimental beat pattern, we predict multi-stability wave modes. Yet, single mode, corresponding to dexioplectic...

We calculate the hydrodynamic flow field generated far from a cilium which is attached to a surface and beats periodically. In the case of two beating cilia, hydrodynamic interactions can lead to synchronization of the cilia, which are nonlinear oscillators. We present a state diagram where synchronized states occur as a function of the distance of cilia and the relative orientation of their be...

Motile cilia and flagella play critical roles in fluid clearance and cell motility, and dysfunction commonly results in the pediatric syndrome primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD). CFAP221, also known as PCDP1, is required for ciliary and flagellar function in mice and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, where it localizes to the C1d projection of the central microtubule apparatus and functions in a complex...

1. The trophozoites of Selenidium fallax propagate bending waves at rates of up to 35 microns s-1, of a similar character to those manifested by eukaryotic cilia and flagella. A beat frequency of 0.12-0.15 Hz appears average, though rates outside this range have been recorded. Translatory locomotion at up to 6 microns s-1 has been observed. The protozoan demonstrates the presence of an active b...

Motile cilia in the mammalian oviduct play a key role in reproduction, such as transporting fertilized oocytes to the uterus for implantation. Due to their small size (~5-10 μm in length and ~300 nm in diameter), live visualization of cilia and their activity in the lumen of the oviduct through tissue layers represents a major challenge not yet overcome. Here, we report a functional low-coheren...

Functioning as sensors and propulsors, cilia are evolutionarily conserved organelles having a highly organized internal structure. How a paramecium's cilium produces off-propulsion-plane curvature during its return stroke for symmetry breaking and drag reduction is not known. We explain these cilium deformations by developing a torsional pendulum model of beat frequency dependence on viscosity ...