Title
Particle sorting by Paramecium cilia arrays.
Abstract
Motile cilia are cell-surface organelles whose purposes, in ciliated protists and certain ciliated metazoan epithelia, include generating fluid flow, sensing and substance uptake. Certain properties of cilia arrays, such as beating synchronisation and manipulation of external proximate particulate matter, are considered emergent, but remain incompletely characterised despite these phenomena having being the subject of extensive modelling. This study constitutes a laboratory experimental characterisation of one of the emergent properties of motile cilia: manipulation of adjacent particulates. The work demonstrates through automated videomicrographic particle tracking that interactions between microparticles and somatic cilia arrays of the ciliated model organism Paramecium caudatum constitute a form of rudimentary ‘sorting’. Small particles are drawn into the organism's proximity by cilia-induced fluid currents at all times, whereas larger particles may be held immobile at a distance from the cell margin when the cell generates characteristic feeding currents in the surrounding media. These findings can contribute to the design and fabrication of biomimetic cilia, with potential applications to the study of ciliopathies.
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1016/j.biosystems.2017.04.001
Biosystems
Keywords
Field
DocType
P. caudatum,Parallel manipulation,Particle tracking,Microparticles,Microscopy,Morphological computation
Nanotechnology,Ciliopathies,Biology,Biophysics,Paramecium,Cilium,Organelle,Motile cilium,Model organism,Genetics,Paramecium caudatum,Particle
Journal
Volume
ISSN
Citations 
156
0303-2647
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
2
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Richard Mayne13310.89
James Gerald Holland Whiting2435.53
Gabrielle Wheway300.34
Chris Melhuish474787.61
andrew adamatzky51180163.89