Spatio-temporal organization of intracellular ATP content and oscillation patterns in response to blue light byPhysarum polycephalum

Summary

Phototactic responses in a giant amoeboid cell ofPhysarum plasmodium were studied both by analyzing intracellular ATP content and by applying image processing for recording oscillatory changes in thickness with use of a microcomputer. The ATP content fluctuated and deviated from the initial level upon exposure to light with varying wavelength from 400 to 600 nm. The maximum decrease in the integrated value\(\int\limits_{\text{O}}^{\text{T}} {{\text{ATP}}}\) dt with T=9 minutes occurred at the wavelength 450 nm. The ATP in a migrating plasmodium distributed twice as high in the front as in the rear. This polar pattern became unstable, and a new wavy pattern appeared by stimulating a local frontal part with blue light. In a concentrically extending plasmodium, peripheral and inside regions oscillated in opposite phase to each other. When part of this organism was exposed to light, stimulated and unslimulated regions began to oscillate in opposite phase, and phase waves propagated inward the stimulated region. And the protoplasm there became thinner, the strongest avoidance reaction occurring to 450 nm light as in ATP response. Phototactic behavior inPhysarum is discussed in terms of bifurcation in spatio-temporal organization appearing in a self-organizing system.