The wavelength of the ciliary beat in Chlamydomonas saturates at long ciliary lengths.

ABSTRACT: Cilia and flagella support bending waves that propagate along their lengths. In short cilia, such as those of the motile biflagellate green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, the wavelength of the ciliary beat is approximately proportional to the length of the cilium. On the other hand, for the longer cilia of other organisms, such as sea urchin and mammalian sperm, the wavelength is shorter than the length, so that each cilium supports multiple wavelengths. These different wavelength/length ratios could be due to genetic or biochemical differences between species or due to length-dependent differences in the underlying physics of motility. To distinguish between these possibilities, we measured the beat wavelength in isolated, reactivated cilia from Chlamydomonas mutants in which ciliary len

SUBMITTER: Lee EH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12709253 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature