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Anomalies in the motion dynamics of long-flagella mutants of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

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Abstract

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has long been used as a model organism in studies of cell motility and flagellar dynamics. The motility of the well-conserved ‘9+2’ axoneme in its flagella remains a subject of immense curiosity. Using high-speed videography and morphological analyses, we have characterized long-flagella mutants (lf1, lf2-1, lf2-5, lf3-2, and lf4) of C. reinhardtii for biophysical parameters such as swimming velocities, waveforms, beat frequencies, and swimming trajectories. These mutants are aberrant in proteins involved in the regulation of flagellar length and bring about a phenotypic increase in this length. Our results reveal that the flagellar beat frequency and swimming velocity are negatively correlated with the length of the flagella. When compared to the wild-type, any increase in the flagellar length reduces both the swimming velocities (by 26–57%) and beat frequencies (by 8–16%). We demonstrate that with no apparent aberrations/ultrastructural deformities in the mutant axonemes, it is this increased length that has a critical role to play in the motion dynamics of C. reinhardtii cells, and, provided there are no significant changes in their flagellar proteome, any increase in this length compromises the swimming velocity either by reduction of the beat frequency or by an alteration in the waveform of the flagella.

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Acknowledgements

The Inter-Academy Summer Students program supported Anisha R. Kashyap. We thank P. A. Lefebvre for kindly donating the lf4 mutant cells and Krishanu Ray for permitting use of the TEM facility at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. We also acknowledge valuable input provided by David Mitchell (Upstate Medical University, USA) for standardizing the conditions for the TEM of axonemes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UM-DAE-Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, Biological Sciences, Kalina campus, Santacruz (E), Mumbai, 400 098, India

    Dolly K. Khona, Venkatramanan G. Rao, Mustafa J. Motiwalla, P. C. Sreekrishna Varma & Jacinta S. D’Souza

  2. K. J. Somaiya College of Commerce and Science, Vidyavihar, Mumbai, 400 077, India

    Anisha R. Kashyap

  3. Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, 400 076, India

    Koyel Das & Siuli Mukhopadhyay

  4. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai, 400 005, India

    Jayashree A. Dharmadhikari, Aditya K. Dharmadhikari & Deepak Mathur

  5. Department of Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai, 400 005, India

    Seema M. Shirolikar & Lalit Borde

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  1. Dolly K. Khona
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Correspondence to Jacinta S. D’Souza.

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Dolly K. Khona and Venkatramanan G. Rao contributed equally to this work.

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Khona, D.K., Rao, V.G., Motiwalla, M.J. et al. Anomalies in the motion dynamics of long-flagella mutants of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii . J Biol Phys 39, 1–14 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10867-012-9282-8

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