Dresden 2020 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 18: Poster VI
BP 18.8: Poster
Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 14:00–16:00, P2/2OG
Mechanisms behind growth and locomotion of Physarum polycephalum — •Nico Schramma1 and Karen Alim1,2 — 1Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization — 2Technical University of Munich
The unicellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum is able to find and efficiently connect multiple food sources by reorganising its network-like morphology. Acto-myosin driven peristaltic contractions of the networks’ tubes enable this efficient mass transport. Moreover, this organism is known to respond to a huge variety of stimuli by altering its body plan and the contraction patterns.
However, it is not understood how this slime mould moves and which mechano-chemical parameters are varied in order to modulate the contractions driving the migration. Here, we present a multi-timescale approach including brightfield-, birefringence- and fluorescence microscopy, particle image velocimetry, and a non-invasive air-jet indentation method to observe the contraction patterns, acto-myosin organisation, local flow-profile and spatial variations in cortex elasticity in small Physarum during migration.