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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 7: Posters: Statistical Physics in Biological Systems

BP 7.2: Poster

Monday, March 14, 2011, 17:15–20:00, P3

Quorum sensing by yeast cells — •André Weber¹, Yury Prokazov², Thomas Mair¹, Werner Zuschratter², and Marcus Hauser¹ — ¹Abteilung Biophysik, Institut für Experimentelle Physik, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Universitätsplatz 2, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany — ²Leibniz-Institut für Neurobiologie, Speziallabor Elektronen- und Laserscanmikroskopie, Brenneckestr. 6, 39118 Magdeburg, Germany

Glycolysis is a central pathway in the energy metabolism of cells, and it may display temporal and spatiotemporal self-organization, which can be observed in cell colonies of the yeast Saccharomyces carlsbergensis. The dynamics of the cell population dependens on the cell density: At high cell densities all cells of the population show synchronous and coherent oscillations, which can be detected as global oscillations in a population of yeast cells. The collective behaviour ceases at a critical, low cell density. This phenomenon is called 'quorum sensing'.

So far, little is known about the behaviour of the individual cells at concentrations below the quorum. Using highly sensitive single photon counting fluorescence microscopy, we study the dynamics of individual, immobilized yeast cells at low cell densities. Our focus lies in elucidating the mechanism of the transition between individual and collective dynamics. At very low cell densities, the individual cells perform metabolic oscillations, the frequencies of which show a very broad distribution. As the cell density approaches the quorum, we observe that the frequency distribution narrows and synchronized collective behaviour sets in.