Amoeboid swimming: a generic self-propulsion of cells in fluids by means of membrane deformations

Microorganisms, such as bacteria, algae, or spermatozoa, are able to propel themselves forward thanks to flagella or cilia activity. By contrast, other organisms employ pronounced changes of the membrane shape to achieve propulsion, a prototypical example being the Eutreptiella gymnastica. Cells of...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2013-11, Vol.111 (22), p.228102-228102, Article 228102
Main Authors: Farutin, Alexander, Rafaï, Salima, Dysthe, Dag Kristian, Duperray, Alain, Peyla, Philippe, Misbah, Chaouqi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological Physics
Cell Surface Extensions - physiology
Euglenida - physiology
Models, Biological
Physics
Swimming - physiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Microorganisms, such as bacteria, algae, or spermatozoa, are able to propel themselves forward thanks to flagella or cilia activity. By contrast, other organisms employ pronounced changes of the membrane shape to achieve propulsion, a prototypical example being the Eutreptiella gymnastica. Cells of the immune system as well as dictyostelium amoebas, traditionally believed to crawl on a substratum, can also swim in a similar way. We develop a model for these organisms: the swimmer is mimicked by a closed incompressible membrane with force density distribution (with zero total force and torque). It is shown that fast propulsion can be achieved with adequate shape adaptations. This swimming is found to consist of an entangled pusher-puller state. The autopropulsion distance over one cycle is a universal linear function of a simple geometrical dimensionless quantity A/V(2/3) (V and A are the cell volume and its membrane area). This study captures the peculiar motion of Eutreptiella gymnastica with simple force distribution.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.228102