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Science 24 July 2009:
Vol. 325. no. 5939, pp. 487 - 490
DOI: 10.1126/science.1172667
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Reports

Chlamydomonas Swims with Two "Gears" in a Eukaryotic Version of Run-and-Tumble Locomotion

Marco Polin,1 Idan Tuval,1 Knut Drescher,1 J. P. Gollub,1,2 Raymond E. Goldstein1,*

The coordination of eukaryotic flagella is essential for many of the most basic processes of life (motility, sensing, and development), yet its emergence and regulation and its connection to locomotion are poorly understood. Previous studies show that the unicellular alga Chlamydomonas, widely regarded as an ideal system in which to study flagellar biology, swims forward by the synchronous action of its two flagella. Using high-speed imaging over long intervals, we found a richer behavior: A cell swimming in the dark stochastically switches between synchronous and asynchronous flagellar beating. Three-dimensional tracking shows that these regimes lead, respectively, to nearly straight swimming and to abrupt large reorientations, which yield a eukaryotic version of the "run-and-tumble" motion of peritrichously flagellated bacteria.

1 Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, UK.
2 Department of Physics, Haverford College, Haverford, PA 19041, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: R.E.Goldstein{at}damtp.cam.ac.uk

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Tumbling for Stealth?.
R. Stocker and W. M. Durham (2009)
Science 325, 400-402
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