Publications related to Protist locomotion

Towards understanding centriole elimination

Centrioles are microtubule-based structures crucial for forming flagella, cilia and centrosomes. Through these roles, centrioles are critical notably for proper cell motility, signalling and division. Recent years have advanced significantly our understand ...

Royal Soc2023

New roles of Bicc1 in cilia formation, cell adhesion, and in adult kidneys

Céline Gagnieux

Bicaudal-C1 (Bicc1), an RNA-Binding protein, is a ciliopathy-associated protein. In development, Bicc1 is necessary for left-right axis specification. Loss of Bicc1 in mice also associates with polycystic kidney development. In human, two hereditary polycy ...

EPFL2023

Highly motile nanoscale magnetic artificial cilia

Yves Bellouard, Tanveer Ul Islam

Among the many complex bioactuators functioning at different scales, the organelle cilium represents a fundamental actuating unit in cellular biology. Producing motions at submicrometer scales, dominated by viscous forces, cilia drive a number of crucial b ...

National Academy of Sciences2021

Mechanotaxis directs Pseudomonas aeruginosa twitching motility

Alexandre Louis André Persat, Lorenzo Anton-Louis Talà, Xavier Jean-Yves Pierrat, Jose Negrete Jr, Marco Julian Kühn, Joanne Netter Engel

The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa explores surfaces using twitching motility powered by retractile extracellu-lar filaments called type IV pili (T4P). Single cells twitch by sequen-tial T4P extension, attachment, and retraction. How single ...

National Academy of Sciences2021

Pseudomonas aeruginosa orchestrates twitching motility by sequential control of type IV pili movements

Alexandre Louis André Persat, Lorenzo Anton-Louis Talà

Prokaryotes have the ability to walk on surfaces using type IV pili (TFP), a motility mechanism known as twitching(1,2). Molecular motors drive TFP extension and retraction, but whether and how these movements are coordinated is unknown(3). Here, we reveal ...

NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP2019

Insights into flagellar function and mechanism from the squid-vibrio symbiosis

Stéphanie Kéren Cohen

Flagella are essential and multifunctional nanomachines that not only move symbionts towards their tissue colonization site, but also play multiple roles in communicating with the host. Thus, untangling the activities of flagella in reaching, interacting, ...

2019

Flagellar microtubule doublet assembly in vitro reveals a regulatory role of tubulin C-terminal tails

Davide Demurtas, Paul Guichard, Virginie Hamel

Microtubule doublets (MTDs), consisting of an incomplete B-microtubule at the surface of a complete A-microtubule, provide a structural scaffold mediating intraflagellar transport and ciliary beating. Despite the fundamental role of MTDs, the molecular mec ...

American Association for the Advancement of Science2019

Identification of Chlamydomonas Central Core Centriolar Proteins Reveals a Role for Human WDR90 in Ciliogenesis

Pierre Gönczy, Romain Hamelin, Florence Armand, Coralie Busso, Paul Guichard, Virginie Hamel, Isabelle Fluckiger

Centrioles are evolutionarily conserved macromolecular structures that are fundamental to form cilia, flagella, and centrosomes. Centrioles are 9-fold symmetrical microtubule-based cylindrical barrels comprising three regions that can be clearly distinguis ...

2017

Basal body structure in Trichonympha

Pierre Gönczy, Paul Guichard

Trichonympha is a symbiotic flagellate of many species of termites and of the wood-feeding cockroach. Remarkably, this unicellular organism harbors up to over ten thousand flagella on its surface, which serve to propel it through the viscous environment of ...

Springer Nature2016

Soft micromachines with programmable motility and morphology

Mahmut Selman Sakar

Nature provides a wide range of inspiration for building mobile micromachines that can navigate through confined heterogenous environments and perform minimally invasive environmental and biomedical operations. For example, microstructures fabricated in th ...

Nature Research2016

Flagellar membranes are rich in raft-forming phospholipids

Adrian Schmid

The observation that the membranes of flagella are enriched in sterols and sphingolipids has led to the hypothesis that flagella might be enriched in raft-forming lipids. However, a detailed lipidomic analysis of flagellar membranes is not available. Novel ...

Company Of Biologists Ltd2015

Locomotion through Reconfiguration based on Motor Primitives for Roombots Self-Reconfigurable Modular Robots

Auke Ijspeert, Massimo Vespignani, Alexander Spröwitz, Rico Möckel, Stéphane Bonardi

We present the hardware and reconfiguration experiments for an autonomous self-reconfigurable modular robot called Roombots (RB). RB were designed to form the basis for self-reconfigurable furniture. Each RB module contains three degrees of freedom that ha ...

IEEE2012

Bicaudal C, a novel regulator of Dvl signaling abutting RNA-processing bodies, controls cilia orientation and leftward flow

Daniel Constam, Thomas Alois Weber, Charlotte Maisonneuve

Polycystic diseases and left-right (LR) axis malformations are frequently linked to cilia defects. Renal cysts also arise in mice and frogs lacking Bicaudal C (BicC), a conserved RNA-binding protein containing K-homology (KH) domains and a sterile alpha mo ...

2009

Molecular analysis of the biodiversity of protists in hydrocarbon-polluted and pristine soils

Enrique Lara

Eukaryotic microorganisms are an essential component of the Earth's global diversity. It is believed that the number of protistan taxa far outnumbers the one of viruses and bacteria. The taxonomic classification of these organisms, which also represent the ...

EPFL2005