Macroscopic waves, biological clocks and morphogenesis driven by light in a giant unicellular green alga.

ABSTRACT: A hallmark of self-organisation in living systems is their capacity to stabilise their own dynamics, often appearing to anticipate and act upon potential outcomes. Caulerpa brachypus is a marine green alga consisting of differentiated organs resembling leaves, stems and roots. While an individual can exceed a metre in size, it is a single multinucleated giant cell. Thus Caulerpa presents the mystery of morphogenesis on macroscopic scales in the absence of cellularization. The experiments reported here reveal self-organised waves of greenness - chloroplasts - that propagate throughout the alga in anticipation of the day-night light cycle. Using dynamical systems analysis we show that these waves are coupled to a self-sustained oscillator, and demonstrate their entrainment to light. Under co

SUBMITTER: Afik E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10550971 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature