Metabolically driven flows enable exponential growth in macroscopic multicellular yeast.

ABSTRACT: The ecological and evolutionary success of multicellular lineages stems substantially from their increased size relative to unicellular ancestors. However, large size poses biophysical challenges, especially regarding nutrient transport: These constraints are typically overcome through multicellular innovations. Here, we show that an emergent biophysical mechanism-spontaneous fluid flows arising from metabolically generated density gradients-can alleviate constraints on nutrient transport, enabling exponential growth in nascent multicellular clusters of yeast lacking any multicellular adaptations for nutrient transport or fluid flow. Beyond a threshold size, the metabolic activity of experimentally evolved snowflake yeast clusters drives large-scale fluid flows that transport nutrients thr

SUBMITTER: Narayanasamy N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12180493 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature