How do water mold spores swim?

Their findings published in eLife (3 May 2022) reveal that, in order for the zoospore to turn, its anterior flagellum ceases to beat sinusoidally, as it does when moving along a straight path, and instead adopts a breaststroke. This is the first time that the movement of such organisms has been described at a microscopic scale. Beyond the fundamental biophysical questions the nature of their motion raises, zoospores represent a new model of ‘microswimmers’ distinct from algae and bacteria, suggesting new avenues of physics research.

Through these findings we now understand how oomycete zoospores move, but we still lack knowledge about when and why they change direction during their movement. In the future, the researchers would like to study the interactions between the zoospores and the roots they infect, in order to identify the chemical processes that attract these pathogenic microorganisms.

This research was a collaborative effort between physicists from the Nice Institute of Physics (CNRS / Université Côte d’Azur), biologists from the Institut Sophia Agrobiotech (INRAE / CNRS / Université Côte d’Azur), a theoretical physicist-modeller from the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics and Modelling (CNRS / CY Cergy Paris Université), and an engineer from the Centre Commun de Microscopie Appliquée (Université Côte d’Azur).

Note

¹ A flagellum is a long, mobile filament shaped like a whip and located at the surface of a cell, by which the latter moves.

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