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Modeling Filamentous Cyanobacteria Reveals the Advantages of Long and Fast Trichomes for Optimizing Light Exposure

Cyanobacteria form a very large and diverse phylum of prokaryotes that perform oxygenic photosynthesis. Many species of cyanobacteria live colonially in long trichomes of hundreds to thousands of cells. Of the filamentous species, many are also motile, gliding along their long axis, and display phot...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Tamulonis, Carlos, Postma, Marten, Kaandorp, Jaap
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3138769/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21789215
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0022084
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author Tamulonis, Carlos
Postma, Marten
Kaandorp, Jaap
author_facet Tamulonis, Carlos
Postma, Marten
Kaandorp, Jaap
author_sort Tamulonis, Carlos
collection PubMed
description Cyanobacteria form a very large and diverse phylum of prokaryotes that perform oxygenic photosynthesis. Many species of cyanobacteria live colonially in long trichomes of hundreds to thousands of cells. Of the filamentous species, many are also motile, gliding along their long axis, and display photomovement, by which a trichome modulates its gliding according to the incident light. The latter has been found to play an important role in guiding the trichomes to optimal lighting conditions, which can either inhibit the cells if the incident light is too weak, or damage the cells if too strong. We have developed a computational model for gliding filamentous photophobic cyanobacteria that allows us to perform simulations on the scale of a Petri dish using over 10(5) individual trichomes. Using the model, we quantify the effectiveness of one commonly observed photomovement strategy—photophobic responses—in distributing large populations of trichomes optimally over a light field. The model predicts that the typical observed length and gliding speeds of filamentous cyanobacteria are optimal for the photophobic strategy. Therefore, our results suggest that not just photomovement but also the trichome shape itself improves the ability of the cyanobacteria to optimize their light exposure.
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spelling pubmed-31387692011-07-25 Modeling Filamentous Cyanobacteria Reveals the Advantages of Long and Fast Trichomes for Optimizing Light Exposure Tamulonis, Carlos Postma, Marten Kaandorp, Jaap PLoS One Research Article Cyanobacteria form a very large and diverse phylum of prokaryotes that perform oxygenic photosynthesis. Many species of cyanobacteria live colonially in long trichomes of hundreds to thousands of cells. Of the filamentous species, many are also motile, gliding along their long axis, and display photomovement, by which a trichome modulates its gliding according to the incident light. The latter has been found to play an important role in guiding the trichomes to optimal lighting conditions, which can either inhibit the cells if the incident light is too weak, or damage the cells if too strong. We have developed a computational model for gliding filamentous photophobic cyanobacteria that allows us to perform simulations on the scale of a Petri dish using over 10(5) individual trichomes. Using the model, we quantify the effectiveness of one commonly observed photomovement strategy—photophobic responses—in distributing large populations of trichomes optimally over a light field. The model predicts that the typical observed length and gliding speeds of filamentous cyanobacteria are optimal for the photophobic strategy. Therefore, our results suggest that not just photomovement but also the trichome shape itself improves the ability of the cyanobacteria to optimize their light exposure. Public Library of Science 2011-07-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3138769/ /pubmed/21789215 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0022084 Text en Tamulonis et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Tamulonis, Carlos
Postma, Marten
Kaandorp, Jaap
Modeling Filamentous Cyanobacteria Reveals the Advantages of Long and Fast Trichomes for Optimizing Light Exposure
title Modeling Filamentous Cyanobacteria Reveals the Advantages of Long and Fast Trichomes for Optimizing Light Exposure
title_full Modeling Filamentous Cyanobacteria Reveals the Advantages of Long and Fast Trichomes for Optimizing Light Exposure
title_fullStr Modeling Filamentous Cyanobacteria Reveals the Advantages of Long and Fast Trichomes for Optimizing Light Exposure
title_full_unstemmed Modeling Filamentous Cyanobacteria Reveals the Advantages of Long and Fast Trichomes for Optimizing Light Exposure
title_short Modeling Filamentous Cyanobacteria Reveals the Advantages of Long and Fast Trichomes for Optimizing Light Exposure
title_sort modeling filamentous cyanobacteria reveals the advantages of long and fast trichomes for optimizing light exposure
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3138769/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21789215
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0022084
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