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Self-generated oxygen gradients control collective aggregation of photosynthetic microbes
For billions of years, photosynthetic microbes have evolved under the variable exposure to sunlight in diverse ecosystems and microhabitats all over our planet. Their abilities to dynamically respond to alterations of the luminous intensity, including phototaxis, surface association and diurnal cell...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8633776/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34847792 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0553 |
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author | Fragkopoulos, Alexandros A. Vachier, Jérémy Frey, Johannes Le Menn, Flora-Maud Mazza, Marco G. Wilczek, Michael Zwicker, David Bäumchen, Oliver |
author_facet | Fragkopoulos, Alexandros A. Vachier, Jérémy Frey, Johannes Le Menn, Flora-Maud Mazza, Marco G. Wilczek, Michael Zwicker, David Bäumchen, Oliver |
author_sort | Fragkopoulos, Alexandros A. |
collection | PubMed |
description | For billions of years, photosynthetic microbes have evolved under the variable exposure to sunlight in diverse ecosystems and microhabitats all over our planet. Their abilities to dynamically respond to alterations of the luminous intensity, including phototaxis, surface association and diurnal cell cycles, are pivotal for their survival. If these strategies fail in the absence of light, the microbes can still sustain essential metabolic functionalities and motility by switching their energy production from photosynthesis to oxygen respiration. For suspensions of motile C. reinhardtii cells above a critical density, we demonstrate that this switch reversibly controls collective microbial aggregation. Aerobic respiration dominates over photosynthesis in conditions of low light, which causes the microbial motility to sensitively depend on the local availability of oxygen. For dense microbial populations in self-generated oxygen gradients, microfluidic experiments and continuum theory based on a reaction–diffusion mechanism show that oxygen-regulated motility enables the collective emergence of highly localized regions of high and low cell densities. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8633776 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-86337762021-12-21 Self-generated oxygen gradients control collective aggregation of photosynthetic microbes Fragkopoulos, Alexandros A. Vachier, Jérémy Frey, Johannes Le Menn, Flora-Maud Mazza, Marco G. Wilczek, Michael Zwicker, David Bäumchen, Oliver J R Soc Interface Life Sciences–Physics interface For billions of years, photosynthetic microbes have evolved under the variable exposure to sunlight in diverse ecosystems and microhabitats all over our planet. Their abilities to dynamically respond to alterations of the luminous intensity, including phototaxis, surface association and diurnal cell cycles, are pivotal for their survival. If these strategies fail in the absence of light, the microbes can still sustain essential metabolic functionalities and motility by switching their energy production from photosynthesis to oxygen respiration. For suspensions of motile C. reinhardtii cells above a critical density, we demonstrate that this switch reversibly controls collective microbial aggregation. Aerobic respiration dominates over photosynthesis in conditions of low light, which causes the microbial motility to sensitively depend on the local availability of oxygen. For dense microbial populations in self-generated oxygen gradients, microfluidic experiments and continuum theory based on a reaction–diffusion mechanism show that oxygen-regulated motility enables the collective emergence of highly localized regions of high and low cell densities. The Royal Society 2021-12-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8633776/ /pubmed/34847792 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0553 Text en © 2021 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Life Sciences–Physics interface Fragkopoulos, Alexandros A. Vachier, Jérémy Frey, Johannes Le Menn, Flora-Maud Mazza, Marco G. Wilczek, Michael Zwicker, David Bäumchen, Oliver Self-generated oxygen gradients control collective aggregation of photosynthetic microbes |
title | Self-generated oxygen gradients control collective aggregation of photosynthetic microbes |
title_full | Self-generated oxygen gradients control collective aggregation of photosynthetic microbes |
title_fullStr | Self-generated oxygen gradients control collective aggregation of photosynthetic microbes |
title_full_unstemmed | Self-generated oxygen gradients control collective aggregation of photosynthetic microbes |
title_short | Self-generated oxygen gradients control collective aggregation of photosynthetic microbes |
title_sort | self-generated oxygen gradients control collective aggregation of photosynthetic microbes |
topic | Life Sciences–Physics interface |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8633776/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34847792 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0553 |
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