TY - BOOK A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Zelldynamik aus Sicht der Strukturbildung : physikalische Konzepte für ein biologisches Problem : Antrittsvorlesung 2008-06-05 N2 - Was lebt ist in Bewegung. Diese einfache Assoziation gilt nicht nur für ausgewachsene Organismen, sondern auch für einzelne Zellen, die kleinsten lebenden Bausteine der Natur. Die Beweglichkeit von Zellen spielt eine zentrale Rolle bei einer Vielzahl biologischer Vorgänge, wie zum Beispiel der Embryonalentwicklung, der Heilung von Wunden oder der krankhaften Ausbreitung von Krebszellen im Körper. Am Beispiel der Beweglichkeit einer einfachen Amöbe können grundlegende Mechanismen der Zelldynamik untersucht und auf der Grundlage physikalischer Konzepte erklärt werden. Y1 - 2008 UR - http://info.ub.uni-potsdam.de/multimedia/show_projekt.php?projekt_id=21 PB - Univ.-Bibl. CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bae, Albert J. A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Bodenschatz, Eberhard T1 - Rapid switching of chemical signals in microfluidic devices N2 - We present an analysis of concentration switching times in microfluidic devices. The limits of rapid switching are analyzed based on the theory of dispersion by Taylor and Aris and compared to both experiments and numerical simulations. We focus on switching times obtained by photo-activation of caged compounds in a micro-flow (flow photolysis). The performance of flow photolysis is compared to other switching techniques. A flow chart is provided to facilitate the application of our theoretical analysis to microfluidic switching devices. Y1 - 2009 UR - http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Journals/JournalIssues/LC U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/B905521e SN - 1473-0197 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Boedeker, Hendrik Ulrich A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Frank, Till D. A1 - Bodenschatz, Eberhard T1 - Quantitative analysis of random ameboid motion N2 - We quantify random migration of the social ameba Dictyostelium discoideum. We demonstrate that the statistics of cell motion can be described by an underlying Langevin-type stochastic differential equation. An analytic expression for the velocity distribution function is derived. The separation into deterministic and stochastic parts of the movement shows that the cells undergo a damped motion with multiplicative noise. Both contributions to the dynamics display a distinct response to external physiological stimuli. The deterministic component depends on the developmental state and ambient levels of signaling substances, while the stochastic part does not. Y1 - 2010 UR - http://iopscience.iop.org/0295-5075/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/90/28005 SN - 0295-5075 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stich, Michael A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Control of pattern formation by time-delay feedback with global and local contributions N2 - We consider the suppression of spatiotemporal chaos in the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation by a combined global and local time-delay feedback. Feedback terms are implemented as a control scheme, i.e., they are proportional to the difference between the time-delayed state of the system and its current state. We perform a linear stability analysis of uniform oscillations with respect to space-dependent perturbations and compare with numerical simulations. Similarly, for the fixed-point solution that corresponds to amplitude death in the spatially extended system, a linear stability analysis with respect to space-dependent perturbations is performed and complemented by numerical simulations. Y1 - 2010 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01672789 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physd.2010.05.001 SN - 0167-2789 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schaefer, Edith A1 - Westendorf, Christian A1 - Bodenschatz, Eberhard A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Geil, Burkhard A1 - Janshoff, Andreas T1 - Shape oscillations of dictyostelium discoideum cells on ultramicroelectrodes monitored by impedance analysis JF - Small Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.201001955 SN - 1613-6810 VL - 7 IS - 6 SP - 723 EP - 726 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Malden ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stich, Michael A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Standing waves in a complex Ginzburg-Landau equation with time-delay feedback JF - Discrete and continuous dynamical systems : a journal bridging mathematics and sciences N2 - Standing waves are studied as solutions of a complex Ginsburg-Landau equation subjected to local and global time-delay feedback terms. The onset of standing waves is studied at the instability of the homogeneous periodic solution with respect to spatially periodic perturbations. The solution of this spatiotemporal wave pattern is given and is compared to the homogeneous periodic solution. KW - pattern formation KW - reaction-diffusion system KW - control Y1 - 2011 SN - 1078-0947 SN - 1553-5231 IS - 1 SP - 1329 EP - 1334 PB - American Institute of Mathematical Sciences CY - Springfield ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Giewekemeyer, K. A1 - Krueger, S. P. A1 - Kalbfleisch, S. A1 - Bartels, Meike A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Salditt, T. T1 - X-ray propagation microscopy of biological cells using waveguides as a quasipoint source JF - Physical review : A, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics N2 - We have used x-ray waveguides as highly confining optical elements for nanoscale imaging of unstained biological cells using the simple geometry of in-line holography. The well-known twin-image problem is effectively circumvented by a simple and fast iterative reconstruction. The algorithm which combines elements of the classical Gerchberg-Saxton scheme and the hybrid-input-output algorithm is optimized for phase-contrast samples, well-justified for imaging of cells at multi-keV photon energies. The experimental scheme allows for a quantitative phase reconstruction from a single holographic image without detailed knowledge of the complex illumination function incident on the sample, as demonstrated for freeze-dried cells of the eukaryotic amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. The accessible resolution range is explored by simulations, indicating that resolutions on the order of 20 nm are within reach applying illumination times on the order of minutes at present synchrotron sources. Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.83.023804 SN - 1050-2947 VL - 83 IS - 2 PB - American Physical Society CY - College Park ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Berenstein, Igal A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Flow-induced control of chemical turbulence JF - The journal of chemical physics : bridges a gap between journals of physics and journals of chemistr N2 - We report spatiotemporal chaos in the Oregonator model of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. Spatiotemporal chaos spontaneously develops in a regime, where the underlying local dynamics show stable limit cycle oscillations (diffusion-induced turbulence). We show that spatiotemporal chaos can be suppressed by a unidirectional flow in the system. With increasing flow velocity, we observe a transition scenario from spatiotemporal chaos via a regime of travelling waves to a stationary steady state. At large flow velocities, we recover the known regime of flow distributed oscillations. KW - chaos KW - chemical equilibrium KW - chemically reactive flow KW - reaction kinetics theory KW - spatiotemporal phenomena KW - turbulence Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3656248 SN - 0021-9606 VL - 135 IS - 16 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Bodenschatz, Eberhard T1 - Microfluidic tools for quantitative studies of eukaryotic chemotaxis JF - European journal of cell biology N2 - Over the past decade, microfluidic techniques have been established as a versatile platform to perform live cell experiments under well-controlled conditions. To investigate the directional responses of cells, stable concentration profiles of chemotactic factors can be generated in microfluidic gradient mixers that provide a high degree of spatial control. However, the times for built-up and switching of gradient profiles are in general too slow to resolve the intracellular protein translocation events of directional sensing of eukaryotes. Here, we review an example of a conventional microfluidic gradient mixer as well as the novel flow photolysis technique that achieves an increased temporal resolution by combining the photo-activation of caged compounds with the advantages of microfluidic chambers. KW - Eukaryotic chemotaxis KW - Dictyostelium discoideum KW - Microfluidics KW - Caged compounds KW - Numerical simulations Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejcb.2011.05.006 SN - 0171-9335 VL - 90 IS - 10 SP - 811 EP - 816 PB - Elsevier CY - Jena ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Amselem, Gabriel A1 - Theves, Matthias A1 - Bae, Albert J. A1 - Bodenschatz, Eberhard A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - A stochastic description of dictyostelium chemotaxis JF - PLoS one N2 - Chemotaxis, the directed motion of a cell toward a chemical source, plays a key role in many essential biological processes. Here, we derive a statistical model that quantitatively describes the chemotactic motion of eukaryotic cells in a chemical gradient. Our model is based on observations of the chemotactic motion of the social ameba Dictyostelium discoideum, a model organism for eukaryotic chemotaxis. A large number of cell trajectories in stationary, linear chemoattractant gradients is measured, using microfluidic tools in combination with automated cell tracking. We describe the directional motion as the interplay between deterministic and stochastic contributions based on a Langevin equation. The functional form of this equation is directly extracted from experimental data by angle-resolved conditional averages. It contains quadratic deterministic damping and multiplicative noise. In the presence of an external gradient, the deterministic part shows a clear angular dependence that takes the form of a force pointing in gradient direction. With increasing gradient steepness, this force passes through a maximum that coincides with maxima in both speed and directionality of the cells. The stochastic part, on the other hand, does not depend on the orientation of the directional cue and remains independent of the gradient magnitude. Numerical simulations of our probabilistic model yield quantitative agreement with the experimental distribution functions. Thus our model captures well the dynamics of chemotactic cells and can serve to quantify differences and similarities of different chemotactic eukaryotes. Finally, on the basis of our model, we can characterize the heterogeneity within a population of chemotactic cells. Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0037213 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 7 IS - 5 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Berenstein, Igal A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Flow-induced transitions in bistable systems JF - Physical review : E, Statistical, nonlinear and soft matter physics N2 - We studied transitions between spatiotemporal patterns that can be induced in a spatially extended nonlinear chemical system by a unidirectional flow in combination with constant inflow concentrations. Three different scenarios were investigated. (i) Under conditions where the system exhibited two stable fixed points, the propagation direction of trigger fronts could be reversed, so that domains of the less stable fixed point invaded the system. (ii) For bistability between a stable fixed point and a limit cycle we observed that above a critical flow velocity, the unstable focus at the center of the limit cycle could be stabilized. Increasing the flow speed further, a regime of damped flow-distributed oscillations was found and, depending on the boundary values at the inflow, finally the stable fixed point dominated. Similarly, also in the case of spatiotemporal chaos (iii), the unstable steady state could be stabilized and was replaced by the stable fixed point with increasing flow velocity. We finally outline a linear stability analysis that can explain part of our findings. Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.86.056205 SN - 1539-3755 VL - 86 IS - 5 PB - American Physical Society CY - College Park ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Berenstein, Igal A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Spatiotemporal chaos arising from standing waves in a reaction-diffusion system with cross-diffusion JF - The journal of chemical physics : bridges a gap between journals of physics and journals of chemistr N2 - We show that quasi-standing wave patterns appear in the two-variable Oregonator model of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction when a cross-diffusion term is added, no wave instability is required in this case. These standing waves have a frequency that is half the frequency of bulk oscillations displayed in the absence of diffusive coupling. The standing wave patterns show a dependence on the systems size. Regular standing waves can be observed for small systems, when the system size is an integer multiple of half the wavelength. For intermediate sizes, irregular patterns are observed. For large sizes, the system shows an irregular state of spatiotemporal chaos, where standing waves drift, merge, and split, and also phase slips may occur. Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3676577 SN - 0021-9606 VL - 136 IS - 3 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Amselem, Gabriel A1 - Theves, Matthias A1 - Bae, Albert J. A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Bodenschatz, Eberhard T1 - Control parameter description of eukaryotic chemotaxis JF - Physical review letters N2 - The chemotaxis of eukaryotic cells depends both on the average concentration of the chemoattractant and on the steepness of its gradient. For the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, we test quantitatively the prediction by Ueda and Shibata [Biophys. J. 93, 11 (2007)] that the efficacy of chemotaxis depends on a single control parameter only, namely, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), determined by the stochastic fluctuations of (i) the binding of the chemoattractant molecule to the transmembrane receptor and (ii) the intracellular activation of the effector of the signaling cascade. For SNR less than or similar to 1, the theory captures the experimental findings well, while for larger SNR noise sources further downstream in the signaling pathway need to be taken into account. Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.108103 SN - 0031-9007 VL - 109 IS - 10 PB - American Physical Society CY - College Park ER - TY - GEN A1 - Barbosa Pfannes, Eva Katharina A1 - Anielski, Alexander A1 - Gerhardt, Matthias A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Intracellular photoactivation of caged cGMP induces myosin II and actin responses in motile cells N2 - Cyclic GMP (cGMP) is a ubiquitous second messenger in eukaryotic cells. It is assumed to regulate the association of myosin II with the cytoskeleton of motile cells. When cells of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum are exposed to chemoattractants or to increased osmotic stress, intracellular cGMP levels rise, preceding the accumulation of myosin II in the cell cortex. To directly investigate the impact of intracellular cGMP on cytoskeletal dynamics in a living cell, we released cGMP inside the cell by laser-induced photo-cleavage of a caged precursor. With this approach, we could directly show in a live cell experiment that an increase in intracellular cGMP indeed induces myosin II to accumulate in the cortex. Unexpectedly, we observed for the first time that also the amount of filamentous actin in the cell cortex increases upon a rise in the cGMP concentration, independently of cAMP receptor activation and signaling. We discuss our results in the light of recent work on the cGMP signaling pathway and suggest possible links between cGMP signaling and the actin system. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 239 KW - cyclic-gmp KW - dictyostelium-discoideum KW - ena/vasp proteins KW - osmotic-stress KW - chemotaxis KW - phosphorylation KW - amp KW - cytoskeleton KW - oscillations KW - chemoattractant Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-94984 SP - 1456 EP - 1463 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Barbosa Pfannes, Eva Katharina A1 - Anielski, Alexander A1 - Gerhardt, Matthias A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Intracellular photoactivation of caged cGMP induces myosin II and actin responses in motile cells JF - Integrative biology N2 - Cyclic GMP (cGMP) is a ubiquitous second messenger in eukaryotic cells. It is assumed to regulate the association of myosin II with the cytoskeleton of motile cells. When cells of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum are exposed to chemoattractants or to increased osmotic stress, intracellular cGMP levels rise, preceding the accumulation of myosin II in the cell cortex. To directly investigate the impact of intracellular cGMP on cytoskeletal dynamics in a living cell, we released cGMP inside the cell by laser-induced photo-cleavage of a caged precursor. With this approach, we could directly show in a live cell experiment that an increase in intracellular cGMP indeed induces myosin II to accumulate in the cortex. Unexpectedly, we observed for the first time that also the amount of filamentous actin in the cell cortex increases upon a rise in the cGMP concentration, independently of cAMP receptor activation and signaling. We discuss our results in the light of recent work on the cGMP signaling pathway and suggest possible links between cGMP signaling and the actin system. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/c3ib40109j SN - 1757-9694 SN - 1757-9708 VL - 5 IS - 12 SP - 1456 EP - 1463 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Westendorf, Christian A1 - Negrete, Jose A1 - Bae, Albert J. A1 - Sandmann, Rabea A1 - Bodenschatz, Eberhard A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Actin cytoskeleton of chemotactic amoebae operates close to the onset of oscillations JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America N2 - The rapid reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton in response to external stimuli is an essential property of many motile eukaryotic cells. Here, we report evidence that the actin machinery of chemotactic Dictyostelium cells operates close to an oscillatory instability. When averaging the actin response of many cells to a short pulse of the chemoattractant cAMP, we observed a transient accumulation of cortical actin reminiscent of a damped oscillation. At the single-cell level, however, the response dynamics ranged from short, strongly damped responses to slowly decaying, weakly damped oscillations. Furthermore, in a small subpopulation, we observed self-sustained oscillations in the cortical F-actin concentration. To substantiate that an oscillatory mechanism governs the actin dynamics in these cells, we systematically exposed a large number of cells to periodic pulse trains of different frequencies. Our results indicate a resonance peak at a stimulation period of around 20 s. We propose a delayed feedback model that explains our experimental findings based on a time-delay in the regulatory network of the actin system. To test the model, we performed stimulation experiments with cells that express GFP-tagged fusion proteins of Coronin and actin-interacting protein 1, as well as knockout mutants that lack Coronin and actin-interacting protein 1. These actin-binding proteins enhance the disassembly of actin filaments and thus allow us to estimate the delay time in the regulatory feedback loop. Based on this independent estimate, our model predicts an intrinsic period of 20 s, which agrees with the resonance observed in our periodic stimulation experiments. KW - Dictyostelium discoideum KW - microfluidics KW - caged cAMP KW - delay-differential equation Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1216629110 SN - 0027-8424 VL - 110 IS - 10 SP - 3853 EP - 3858 PB - National Acad. of Sciences CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Berenstein, Igal A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Cross-diffusion in the two-variable Oregonator model JF - Chaos : an interdisciplinary journal of nonlinear science N2 - We explore the effect of cross-diffusion on pattern formation in the two-variable Oregonator model of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. For high negative cross-diffusion of the activator (the activator being attracted towards regions of increased inhibitor concentration) we find, depending on the values of the parameters, Turing patterns, standing waves, oscillatory Turing patterns, and quasi-standing waves. For the inhibitor, we find that positive cross-diffusion (the inhibitor being repelled by increasing concentrations of the activator) can induce Turing patterns, jumping waves and spatially modulated bulk oscillations. We qualitatively explain the formation of these patterns. With one model we can explain Turing patterns, standing waves and jumping waves, which previously was done with three different models. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4816937 SN - 1054-1500 VL - 23 IS - 3 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stich, Michael A1 - Casal, Alfonso A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Stabilization of standing waves through time-delay feedback JF - Physical review : E, Statistical, nonlinear and soft matter physics N2 - Standing waves are studied as solutions of a complex Ginzburg-Landau equation subjected to local and global time-delay feedback terms. The onset is described as an instability of the uniform oscillations with respect to spatially periodic perturbations. The solution of the standing wave pattern is given analytically and studied through simulations. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.88.042910 SN - 1539-3755 SN - 1550-2376 VL - 88 IS - 4 PB - American Physical Society CY - College Park ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Theves, Matthias A1 - Taktikos, Johannes A1 - Zaburdaev, Vasily A1 - Stark, Holger A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - A bacterial swimmer with two alternating speeds of propagation JF - Biophysical journal N2 - We recorded large data sets of swimming trajectories of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida. Like other prokaryotic swimmers, P. putida exhibits a motion pattern dominated by persistent runs that are interrupted by turning events. An in-depth analysis of their swimming trajectories revealed that the majority of the turning events is characterized by an angle of phi(1) = 180 degrees (reversals). To a lesser extent, turning angles of phi(2 Sigma Sigma Sigma Sigma) = 00 are also found. Remarkably, we observed that, upon a reversal, the swimming speed changes by a factor of two on average a prominent feature of the motion pattern that, to our knowledge, has not been reported before. A theoretical model, based on the experimental values for the average run time and the rotational diffusion, recovers the mean-square displacement of P. putida if the two distinct swimming speeds are taken into account. Compared to a swimmer that moves with a constant intermediate speed, the mean-square displacement is strongly enhanced. We furthermore observed a negative dip in the directional autocorrelation at intermediate times, a feature that is only recovered in an extended model, where the nonexponential shape of the run-time distribution is taken into account. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2013.08.047 SN - 0006-3495 SN - 1542-0086 VL - 105 IS - 8 SP - 1915 EP - 1924 PB - Cell Press CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pfannes, Eva K. A1 - Anielski, Alexander A1 - Gerhardt, Matthias A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Intracellular photoactivation of caged-cGMP induces myosin II and actin responses in motile cells N2 - Cyclic GMP (cGMP) is a ubiquitous second messenger in eukaryotic cells. It is assumed to regulate the association of myosin II with the cytoskeleton of motile cells. When cells of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum are exposed to chemoattractants or to increased osmotic stress, intracellular cGMP levels rise, preceding the accumulation of myosin II in the cell cortex. To directly investigate the impact of intracellular cGMP on cytoskeletal dynamics in a living cell, we released cGMP inside the cell by laser-induced photo-cleavage of a caged precursor. With this approach, we could directly show in a live cell experiment that an increase in intracellular cGMP indeed induces myosin II to accumulate in the cortex. Unexpectedly, we observed for the first time that also the amount of filamentous actin in the cell cortex increases upon a rise in the cGMP concentration, independently of cAMP receptor activation and signaling. We discuss our results in the light of recent work on the cGMP signaling pathway and suggest possible links between cGMP signaling and the actin system. Y1 - 2013 UR - http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2013/ib/c3ib40109j U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/C3IB40109J ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gerhardt, Matthias A1 - Ecke, Mary A1 - Walz, Michael A1 - Stengl, Andreas A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Gerisch, Günther T1 - Actin and PIP3 waves in giant cells reveal the inherent length scale of an excited state JF - Journal of cell science N2 - The membrane and actin cortex of a motile cell can autonomously differentiate into two states, one typical of the front, the other of the tail. On the substrate-attached surface of Dictyostelium discoideum cells, dynamic patterns of front-like and tail-like states are generated that are well suited to monitor transitions between these states. To image large-scale pattern dynamics independently of boundary effects, we produced giant cells by electric-pulse-induced cell fusion. In these cells, actin waves are coupled to the front and back of phosphatidylinositol (3,4,5)-trisphosphate (PIP3)-rich bands that have a finite width. These composite waves propagate across the plasma membrane of the giant cells with undiminished velocity. After any disturbance, the bands of PIP3 return to their intrinsic width. Upon collision, the waves locally annihilate each other and change direction; at the cell border they are either extinguished or reflected. Accordingly, expanding areas of progressing PIP3 synthesis become unstable beyond a critical radius, their center switching from a front-like to a tail-like state. Our data suggest that PIP3 patterns in normal-sized cells are segments of the self-organizing patterns that evolve in giant cells. KW - Actin waves KW - PIP3 signals KW - Excitable systems KW - Cell polarity KW - Cell fusion Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.156000 SN - 0021-9533 SN - 1477-9137 VL - 127 IS - 20 SP - 4507 EP - 4517 PB - Company of Biologists Limited CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Makarava, Natallia A1 - Menz, Stephan A1 - Theves, Matthias A1 - Huisinga, Wilhelm A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Holschneider, Matthias T1 - Quantifying the degree of persistence in random amoeboid motion based on the Hurst exponent of fractional Brownian motion JF - Physical review : E, Statistical, nonlinear and soft matter physics N2 - Amoebae explore their environment in a random way, unless external cues like, e. g., nutrients, bias their motion. Even in the absence of cues, however, experimental cell tracks show some degree of persistence. In this paper, we analyzed individual cell tracks in the framework of a linear mixed effects model, where each track is modeled by a fractional Brownian motion, i.e., a Gaussian process exhibiting a long-term correlation structure superposed on a linear trend. The degree of persistence was quantified by the Hurst exponent of fractional Brownian motion. Our analysis of experimental cell tracks of the amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum showed a persistent movement for the majority of tracks. Employing a sliding window approach, we estimated the variations of the Hurst exponent over time, which allowed us to identify points in time, where the correlation structure was distorted ("outliers"). Coarse graining of track data via down-sampling allowed us to identify the dependence of persistence on the spatial scale. While one would expect the (mode of the) Hurst exponent to be constant on different temporal scales due to the self-similarity property of fractional Brownian motion, we observed a trend towards stronger persistence for the down-sampled cell tracks indicating stronger persistence on larger time scales. Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.90.042703 SN - 1539-3755 SN - 1550-2376 VL - 90 IS - 4 PB - American Physical Society CY - College Park ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gerhardt, Matthias A1 - Walz, Michael A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Signaling in chemotactic amoebae remains spatially confined to stimulated membrane regions JF - Journal of cell science N2 - Recent work has demonstrated that the receptor-mediated signaling system in chemotactic amoeboid cells shows typical properties of an excitable system. Here, we delivered spatially confined stimuli of the chemoattractant cAMP to the membrane of differentiated Dictyostelium discoideum cells to investigate whether localized receptor stimuli can induce the spreading of excitable waves in the G-protein-dependent signal transduction system. By imaging the spatiotemporal dynamics of fluorescent markers for phosphatidylinositol (3,4,5)-trisphosphate (PIP3), PTEN and filamentous actin, we observed that the activity of the signaling pathway remained spatially confined to the stimulated membrane region. Neighboring parts of the membrane were not excited and no receptor-initiated spatial spreading of excitation waves was observed. To generate localized cAMP stimuli, either particles that carried covalently bound cAMP molecules on their surface were brought into contact with the cell or a patch of the cell membrane was aspirated into a glass micropipette to shield this patch against freely diffusing cAMP molecules in the surrounding medium. Additionally, the binding site of the cAMP receptor was probed with different surface-immobilized cAMP molecules, confirming results from earlier ligand-binding studies. KW - Signal transduction KW - Excitable dynamics KW - Dictyostelium KW - cAMP KW - PIP3 KW - PIP2 KW - PI3K KW - PTEN KW - Micropipette aspiration KW - cAMP receptor KW - Patch clamp Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.161133 SN - 0021-9533 SN - 1477-9137 VL - 127 IS - 23 SP - 5115 EP - 5125 PB - Company of Biologists Limited CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nagel, Oliver A1 - Guven, Can A1 - Theves, Matthias A1 - Driscoll, Meghan A1 - Losert, Wolfgang A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Geometry-driven polarity in motile amoeboid cells JF - PLoS one N2 - Motile eukaryotic cells, such as leukocytes, cancer cells, and amoeba, typically move inside the narrow interstitial spacings of tissue or soil. While most of our knowledge of actin-driven eukaryotic motility was obtained from cells that move on planar open surfaces, recent work has demonstrated that confinement can lead to strongly altered motile behavior. Here, we report experimental evidence that motile amoeboid cells undergo a spontaneous symmetry breaking in confined interstitial spaces. Inside narrow channels, the cells switch to a highly persistent, unidirectional mode of motion, moving at a constant speed along the channel. They remain in contact with the two opposing channel side walls and alternate protrusions of their leading edge near each wall. Their actin cytoskeleton exhibits a characteristic arrangement that is dominated by dense, stationary actin foci at the side walls, in conjunction with less dense dynamic regions at the leading edge. Our experimental findings can be explained based on an excitable network model that accounts for the confinement-induced symmetry breaking and correctly recovers the spatio-temporal pattern of protrusions at the leading edge. Since motile cells typically live in the narrow interstitial spacings of tissue or soil, we expect that the geometry-driven polarity we report here plays an important role for movement of cells in their natural environment. Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0113382 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 9 IS - 12 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Raatz, Michael A1 - Hintsche, Marius A1 - Bahrs, Marco A1 - Theves, Matthias A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Swimming patterns of a polarly flagellated bacterium in environments of increasing complexity JF - European physical journal special topics N2 - The natural habitat of many bacterial swimmers is dominated by interfaces and narrow interstitial spacings where they frequently interact with the fluid boundaries in their vicinity. To quantify these interactions, we investigated the swimming behavior of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida in a variety of confined environments. Using microfluidic techniques, we fabricated structured microchannels with different configurations of cylindrical obstacles. In these environments, we analyzed the swimming trajectories for different obstacle densities and arrangements. Although the overall swimming pattern remained similar to movement in the bulk fluid, we observed a change in the turning angle distribution that could be attributed to collisions with the cylindrical obstacles. Furthermore, a comparison of the mean run length of the bacteria to the mean free path of a billiard particle in the same geometry indicated that, inside a densely packed environment, the trajectories of the bacterial swimmers are efficiently guided along the open spacings. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2015-02454-3 SN - 1951-6355 SN - 1951-6401 VL - 224 IS - 7 SP - 1185 EP - 1198 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Theves, Matthias A1 - Taktikos, J. A1 - Zaburdaev, V. A1 - Stark, H. A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Random walk patterns of a soil bacterium in open and confined environments JF - epl : a letters journal exploring the frontiers of physics N2 - We used microfluidic tools and high-speed time-lapse microscopy to record trajectories of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida in a confined environment with cells swimming in close proximity to a glass-liquid interface. While the general swimming pattern is preserved, when compared to swimming in the bulk fluid, our results show that cells in the presence of two solid boundaries display more frequent reversals in swimming direction and swim faster. Additionally, we observe that run segments are no longer straight and that cells swim on circular trajectories, which can be attributed to the hydrodynamic wall effect. Using the experimentally observed parameters together with a recently presented analytic model for a run-reverse random walker, we obtained additional insight on how the spreading behavior of a cell population is affected under confinement. While on short time scales, the mean square displacement of confined swimmers grows faster as compared to the bulk fluid case, our model predicts that for large times the situation reverses due to the strong increase in effective rotational diffusion. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/109/28007 SN - 0295-5075 SN - 1286-4854 VL - 109 IS - 2 PB - EDP Sciences CY - Mulhouse ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Niedl, Robert Raimund A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Hydrogel-driven paper-based microfluidics JF - LAB on a chip : miniaturisation for chemistry and biology N2 - Paper-based microfluidics provide an inexpensive, easy to use technology for point-of-care diagnostics in developing countries. Here, we combine paper-based microfluidic devices with responsive hydrogels to add an entire new class of functions to these versatile low-cost fluidic systems. The hydrogels serve as fluid reservoirs. In response to an external stimulus, e.g. an increase in temperature, the hydrogels collapse and release fluid into the structured paper substrate. In this way, chemicals that are either stored on the paper substrate or inside the hydrogel pads can be dissolved, premixed, and brought to reaction to fulfill specific analytic tasks. We demonstrate that multi-step sequences of chemical reactions can be implemented in a paper-based system and operated without the need for external precision pumps. We exemplify this technology by integrating an antibody-based E. coli test on a small and easy to use paper device. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/c5lc00276a SN - 1473-0197 SN - 1473-0189 VL - 15 IS - 11 SP - 2452 EP - 2459 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - To turn or not to turn? JF - NEW JOURNAL OF PHYSICS N2 - Bacteria typically swim in straight runs, interruped by sudden turning events. In particular, some species are limited to a reversal in the swimming direction as the only turning maneuver at their disposal. In a recent article, Grossmann et al (2016 New J. Phys. 18 043009) introduce a theoretical framework to analyze the diffusive properties of active particles following this type of run-and-reverse pattern. Based on a stochastic clock model to mimic the regulatory pathway that triggers reversal events, they show that a run-and-reverse swimmer can optimize its diffusive spreading by tuning the reversal rate according to the level of rotational noise. With their approach, they open up promising new perspectives of how to incorporate the dynamics of intracellular signaling into coarse-grained active particle descriptions. KW - bacterial swimming KW - random walks KW - diffusion KW - stochastic models Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/18/5/051003 SN - 1367-2630 VL - 18 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - GEN A1 - Berenstein, Igal A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - De Decker, Yannick T1 - Comment on "Flow-induced arrest of spatiotemporal chaos and transition to a stationary pattern in the Gray-Scott model" T2 - Physical review : E, Statistical, nonlinear and soft matter physics N2 - In this Comment, we review the results of pattern formation in a reaction-diffusion-advection system following the kinetics of the Gray-Scott model. A recent paper by Das [Phys. Rev. E 92, 052914 (2015)] shows that spatiotemporal chaos of the intermittency type can disappear as the advective flow is increased. This study, however, refers to a single point in the space of kinetic parameters of the original Gray-Scott model. Here we show that the wealth of patterns increases substantially as some of these parameters are changed. In addition to spatiotemporal intermittency, defect-mediated turbulence can also be found. In all cases, however, the chaotic behavior is seen to disappear as the advective flow is increased, following a scenario similar to what was reported in our earlier work [I. Berenstein and C. Beta, Phys. Rev. E 86, 056205 (2012)] as well as by Das. We also point out that a similar phenomenon can be found in other reaction-diffusion-advection models, such as the Oregonator model for the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction under flow conditions. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.94.046201 SN - 2470-0045 SN - 2470-0053 VL - 94 PB - American Physical Society CY - College Park ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Negrete, Jose A1 - Pumir, Alain A1 - Hsu, Hsin-Fang A1 - Westendorf, Christian A1 - Tarantola, Marco A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Bodenschatz, Eberhard T1 - Noisy Oscillations in the Actin Cytoskeleton of Chemotactic Amoeba JF - Physical review letters N2 - Biological systems with their complex biochemical networks are known to be intrinsically noisy. Here we investigate the dynamics of actin polymerization of amoeboid cells, which are close to the onset of oscillations. We show that the large phenotypic variability in the polymerization dynamics can be accurately captured by a generic nonlinear oscillator model in the presence of noise. We determine the relative role of the noise with a single dimensionless, experimentally accessible parameter, thus providing a quantitative description of the variability in a population of cells. Our approach, which rests on a generic description of a system close to a Hopf bifurcation and includes the effect of noise, can characterize the dynamics of a large class of noisy systems close to an oscillatory instability. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.148102 SN - 0031-9007 SN - 1079-7114 VL - 117 PB - American Physical Society CY - College Park ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Leonhardt, Helmar A1 - Gerhardt, Matthias A1 - Hoeppner, Nadine A1 - Krüger, Kirsten A1 - Tarantola, Marco A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Cell-substrate impedance fluctuations of single amoeboid cells encode cell-shape and adhesion dynamics JF - Physical review : E, Statistical, nonlinear and soft matter physics N2 - We show systematic electrical impedance measurements of single motile cells on microelectrodes. Wild-type cells and mutant strains were studied that differ in their cell-substrate adhesion strength. We recorded the projected cell area by time-lapse microscopy and observed irregular oscillations of the cell shape. These oscillations were correlated with long-term variations in the impedance signal. Superposed to these long-term trends, we observed fluctuations in the impedance signal. Their magnitude clearly correlated with the adhesion strength, suggesting that strongly adherent cells display more dynamic cell-substrate interactions. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.93.012414 SN - 2470-0045 SN - 2470-0053 VL - 93 PB - American Physical Society CY - College Park ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stange, Maike A1 - Hintsche, Marius A1 - Sachse, Kirsten A1 - Gerhardt, Matthias A1 - Valleriani, Angelo A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Analyzing the spatial positioning of nuclei in polynuclear giant cells JF - Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics N2 - How cells establish and maintain a well-defined size is a fundamental question of cell biology. Here we investigated to what extent the microtubule cytoskeleton can set a predefined cell size, independent of an enclosing cell membrane. We used electropulse-induced cell fusion to form giant multinuclear cells of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. Based on dual-color confocal imaging of cells that expressed fluorescent markers for the cell nucleus and the microtubules, we determined the subcellular distributions of nuclei and centrosomes in the giant cells. Our two- and three-dimensional imaging results showed that the positions of nuclei in giant cells do not fall onto a regular lattice. However, a comparison with model predictions for random positioning showed that the subcellular arrangement of nuclei maintains a low but still detectable degree of ordering. This can be explained by the steric requirements of the microtubule cytoskeleton, as confirmed by the effect of a microtubule degrading drug. KW - Dictyostelium KW - cell nucleus KW - positioning KW - imaging KW - spatial poisson distribution Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6463/aa8da0 SN - 0022-3727 SN - 1361-6463 VL - 50 IS - 46 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Kruse, Karsten T1 - Intracellular oscillations and waves JF - Annual review of condensed matter physics N2 - Dynamic processes in living cells are highly organized in space and time. Unraveling the underlying molecular mechanisms of spatiotemporal pattern formation remains one of the outstanding challenges at the interface between physics and biology. A fundamental recurrent pattern found in many different cell types is that of self-sustained oscillations. They are involved in a wide range of cellular functions, including second messenger signaling, gene expression, and cytoskeletal dynamics. Here, we review recent developments in the field of cellular oscillations and focus on cases where concepts from physics have been instrumental for understanding the underlying mechanisms. We consider biochemical and genetic oscillators as well as oscillations that arise from chemo-mechanical coupling. Finally, we highlight recent studies of intracellular waves that have increasingly moved into the focus of this research field. KW - self-sustained oscillations KW - biochemical oscillators KW - genetic networks KW - chemomechanical coupling KW - actin waves Y1 - 2017 SN - 978-0-8243-5008-6 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-conmatphys-031016-025210 SN - 1947-5454 VL - 8 SP - 239 EP - 264 PB - Annual Reviews CY - Palo Alto ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Anielski, Alexander A1 - Barbosa Pfannes, Eva Katharina A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Adaptive microfluidic gradient generator for quantitative chemotaxis experiments JF - Review of scientific instruments : a monthly journal devoted to scientific instruments, apparatus, and techniques N2 - Chemotactic motion in a chemical gradient is an essential cellular function that controls many processes in the living world. For a better understanding and more detailed modelling of the underlying mechanisms of chemotaxis, quantitative investigations in controlled environments are needed. We developed a setup that allows us to separately address the dependencies of the chemotactic motion on the average background concentration and on the gradient steepness of the chemoattractant. In particular, both the background concentration and the gradient steepness can be kept constant at the position of the cell while it moves along in the gradient direction. This is achieved by generating a well-defined chemoattractant gradient using flow photolysis. In this approach, the chemoattractant is released by a light-induced reaction from a caged precursor in a microfluidic flow chamber upstream of the cell. The flow photolysis approach is combined with an automated real-time cell tracker that determines changes in the cell position and triggers movement of the microscope stage such that the cell motion is compensated and the cell remains at the same position in the gradient profile. The gradient profile can be either determined experimentally using a caged fluorescent dye or may be alternatively determined by numerical solutions of the corresponding physical model. To demonstrate the function of this adaptive microfluidic gradient generator, we compare the chemotactic motion of Dictyostelium discoideum cells in a static gradient and in a gradient that adapts to the position of the moving cell. Published by AIP Publishing. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4978535 SN - 0034-6748 SN - 1089-7623 VL - 88 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hintsche, Marius A1 - Waljor, Veronika A1 - Grossmann, Robert A1 - Kühn, Marco J. A1 - Thormann, Kai M. A1 - Peruani, Fernando A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - A polar bundle of flagella can drive bacterial swimming by pushing, pulling, or coiling around the cell body JF - Scientific reports N2 - Bacteria swim in sequences of straight runs that are interrupted by turning events. They drive their swimming locomotion with the help of rotating helical flagella. Depending on the number of flagella and their arrangement across the cell body, different run-and-turn patterns can be observed. Here, we present fluorescence microscopy recordings showing that cells of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida that are decorated with a polar tuft of helical flagella, can alternate between two distinct swimming patterns. On the one hand, they can undergo a classical push-pull-push cycle that is well known from monopolarly flagellated bacteria but has not been reported for species with a polar bundle of multiple flagella. Alternatively, upon leaving the pulling mode, they can enter a third slow swimming phase, where they propel themselves with their helical bundle wrapped around the cell body. A theoretical estimate based on a random-walk model shows that the spreading of a population of swimmers is strongly enhanced when cycling through a sequence of pushing, pulling, and wrapped flagellar configurations as compared to the simple push-pull-push pattern. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-16428-9 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 7 PB - Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Alonso, Sergio A1 - Stange, Mai Ke A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Modeling random crawling, membrane deformation and intracellular polarity of motile amoeboid cells JF - PLoS one N2 - Amoeboid movement is one of the most widespread forms of cell motility that plays a key role in numerous biological contexts. While many aspects of this process are well investigated, the large cell-to-cell variability in the motile characteristics of an otherwise uniform population remains an open question that was largely ignored by previous models. In this article, we present a mathematical model of amoeboid motility that combines noisy bistable kinetics with a dynamic phase field for the cell shape. To capture cell-to-cell variability, we introduce a single parameter for tuning the balance between polarity formation and intracellular noise. We compare numerical simulations of our model to experiments with the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. Despite the simple structure of our model, we found close agreement with the experimental results for the center-of-mass motion as well as for the evolution of the cell shape and the overall intracellular patterns. We thus conjecture that the building blocks of our model capture essential features of amoeboid motility and may serve as a starting point for more detailed descriptions of cell motion in chemical gradients and confined environments. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201977 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 13 IS - 8 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - GEN A1 - Alonso, Sergio A1 - Stange, Maike A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Modeling random crawling, membrane deformation and intracellular polarity of motile amoeboid cells T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Amoeboid movement is one of the most widespread forms of cell motility that plays a key role in numerous biological contexts. While many aspects of this process are well investigated, the large cell-to-cell variability in the motile characteristics of an otherwise uniform population remains an open question that was largely ignored by previous models. In this article, we present a mathematical model of amoeboid motility that combines noisy bistable kinetics with a dynamic phase field for the cell shape. To capture cell-to-cell variability, we introduce a single parameter for tuning the balance between polarity formation and intracellular noise. We compare numerical simulations of our model to experiments with the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. Despite the simple structure of our model, we found close agreement with the experimental results for the center-of-mass motion as well as for the evolution of the cell shape and the overall intracellular patterns. We thus conjecture that the building blocks of our model capture essential features of amoeboid motility and may serve as a starting point for more detailed descriptions of cell motion in chemical gradients and confined environments. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1014 KW - signaling system KW - eukaryotic chemotaxis KW - Dictyostelium cells KW - actin cytoskeleton KW - excitable networks KW - PIP3 waves KW - migration KW - dynamics KW - oscillations KW - transduction Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-459745 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 1014 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Seyrich, Maximilian A1 - Alirezaeizanjani, Zahra A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Stark, Holger T1 - Statistical parameter inference of bacterial swimming strategies JF - New journal of physics : the open-access journal for physics N2 - We provide a detailed stochastic description of the swimming motion of an E. coli bacterium in two dimension, where we resolve tumble events in time. For this purpose, we set up two Langevin equations for the orientation angle and speed dynamics. Calculating moments, distribution and autocorrelation functions from both Langevin equations and matching them to the same quantities determined from data recorded in experiments, we infer the swimming parameters of E. coli. They are the tumble rate lambda, the tumble time r(-1), the swimming speed v(0), the strength of speed fluctuations sigma, the relative height of speed jumps eta, the thermal value for the rotational diffusion coefficient D-0, and the enhanced rotational diffusivity during tumbling D-T. Conditioning the observables on the swimming direction relative to the gradient of a chemoattractant, we infer the chemotaxis strategies of E. coli. We confirm the classical strategy of a lower tumble rate for swimming up the gradient but also a smaller mean tumble angle (angle bias). The latter is realized by shorter tumbles as well as a slower diffusive reorientation. We also find that speed fluctuations are increased by about 30% when swimming up the gradient compared to the reversed direction. KW - E.coli KW - run and tumble KW - chemotaxis KW - stochastic processes KW - bacterial swimming strategies KW - parameter inference Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/aae72c SN - 1367-2630 VL - 20 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hsu, H. F. A1 - Krekhov, Andrey A1 - Tarantola, Marco A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Bodenschatz, Eberhardt T1 - Interplay between myosin II and actin dynamics in chemotactic amoeba JF - New journal of physics : the open-access journal for physics N2 - The actin cytoskeleton and its response to external chemical stimuli is fundamental to the mechano-biology of eukaryotic cells and their functions. One of the key players that governs the dynamics of the actin network is the motor protein myosin II. Based on a phase space embedding we have identified from experiments three phases in the cytoskeletal dynamics of starved Dictyostelium discoideum in response to a precisely controlled chemotactic stimulation. In the first two phases the dynamics of actin and myosin II in the cortex is uncoupled, while in the third phase the time scale for the recovery of cortical actin is determined by the myosin II dynamics. We report a theoretical model that captures the experimental observations quantitatively. The model predicts an increase in the optimal response time of actin with decreasing myosin II-actin coupling strength highlighting the role of myosin II in the robust control of cell contraction. KW - actin KW - myosin II KW - chemotaxis KW - oscillations KW - coupling KW - delay differential equation KW - contraction Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ab5822 SN - 1367-2630 VL - 21 IS - 11 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nagel, Oliver A1 - Frey, Manuel A1 - Gerhardt, Matthias A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Harnessing Motile Amoeboid Cells as Trucks for Microtransport and -Assembly JF - Advanced science N2 - Cell-driven microtransport is one of the most prominent applications in the emerging field of biohybrid systems. While bacterial cells have been successfully employed to drive the swimming motion of micrometer-sized cargo particles, the transport capacities of motile adherent cells remain largely unexplored. Here, it is demonstrated that motile amoeboid cells can act as efficient and versatile trucks to transport microcargo. When incubated together with microparticles, cells of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum readily pick up and move the cargo particles. Relying on the unspecific adhesive properties of the amoeba, a wide range of different cargo materials can be used. The cell-driven transport can be directionally guided based on the chemotactic responses of amoeba to chemoattractant gradients. On the one hand, the cargo can be assembled into clusters in a self-organized fashion, relying on the developmentally induced chemotactic aggregation of cells. On the other hand, chemoattractant gradients can be externally imposed to guide the cellular microtrucks to a desired location. Finally, larger cargo particles of different shapes that exceed the size of a single cell by more than an order of magnitude, can also be transported by the collective effort of large numbers of motile cells. KW - biohybrid microsystems KW - chemotaxis KW - Dictyostelium discoideum KW - microtransport and -assembly Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.201801242 SN - 2198-3844 VL - 6 IS - 3 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - GEN A1 - Lepro, Valentino A1 - Nagel, Oliver A1 - Klumpp, Stefan A1 - Lipowsky, Reinhard A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Cooperative Transport by Amoeboid Cells BT - a Cellular Tug-of-War T2 - Biophysical journal Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2018.11.682 SN - 0006-3495 SN - 1542-0086 VL - 116 IS - 3 SP - 122A EP - 122A PB - Cell Press CY - Cambridge ER - TY - GEN A1 - Stich, Michael A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Time-Delay Feedback Control of an Oscillatory Medium T2 - Biological Systems: Nonlinear Dynamics Approach N2 - The supercritical Hopf bifurcation is one of the simplest ways in which a stationary state of a nonlinear system can undergo a transition to stable self-sustained oscillations. At the bifurcation point, a small-amplitude limit cycle is born, which already at onset displays a finite frequency. If we consider a reaction-diffusion system that undergoes a supercritical Hopf bifurcation, its dynamics is described by the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation (CGLE). Here, we study such a system in the parameter regime where the CGLE shows spatio-temporal chaos. We review a type of time-delay feedback methods which is suitable to suppress chaos and replace it by other spatio-temporal solutions such as uniform oscillations, plane waves, standing waves, and the stationary state. Y1 - 2019 SN - 978-3-030-16585-7 SN - 978-3-030-16584-0 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16585-7_1 SN - 2199-3041 SN - 2199-305X VL - 20 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - Springer CY - Cham ER - TY - GEN A1 - Weber, Ariane A1 - Bahrs, Marco A1 - Alirezaeizanjani, Zahra A1 - Zhang, Xingyu A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Zaburdaev, Vasily T1 - Rectification of Bacterial Diffusion in Microfluidic Labyrinths T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - In nature as well as in the context of infection and medical applications, bacteria often have to move in highly complex environments such as soil or tissues. Previous studies have shown that bacteria strongly interact with their surroundings and are often guided by confinements. Here, we investigate theoretically how the dispersal of swimming bacteria can be augmented by microfluidic environments and validate our theoretical predictions experimentally. We consider a system of bacteria performing the prototypical run-and-tumble motion inside a labyrinth with square lattice geometry. Narrow channels between the square obstacles limit the possibility of bacteria to reorient during tumbling events to an area where channels cross. Thus, by varying the geometry of the lattice it might be possible to control the dispersal of cells. We present a theoretical model quantifying diffusive spreading of a run-and-tumble random walker in a square lattice. Numerical simulations validate our theoretical predictions for the dependence of the diffusion coefficient on the lattice geometry. We show that bacteria moving in square labyrinths exhibit enhanced dispersal as compared to unconfined cells. Importantly, confinement significantly extends the duration of the phase with strongly non-Gaussian diffusion, when the geometry of channels is imprinted in the density profiles of spreading cells. Finally, in good agreement with our theoretical findings, we observe the predicted behaviors in experiments with E. coli bacteria swimming in a square lattice labyrinth created in amicrofluidic device. Altogether, our comprehensive understanding of bacterial dispersal in a simple two-dimensional labyrinth makes the first step toward the analysis of more complex geometries relevant for real world applications. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 801 KW - diffusion KW - rectification KW - random walk KW - bacteria KW - confinement Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-441222 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 801 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Weber, Ariane A1 - Bahrs, Marco A1 - Alirezaeizanjani, Zahra A1 - Zhang, Xingyu A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Zaburdaev, Vasily T1 - Rectification of Bacterial Diffusion in Microfluidic Labyrinths JF - Frontiers in Physics N2 - In nature as well as in the context of infection and medical applications, bacteria often have to move in highly complex environments such as soil or tissues. Previous studies have shown that bacteria strongly interact with their surroundings and are often guided by confinements. Here, we investigate theoretically how the dispersal of swimming bacteria can be augmented by microfluidic environments and validate our theoretical predictions experimentally. We consider a system of bacteria performing the prototypical run-and-tumble motion inside a labyrinth with square lattice geometry. Narrow channels between the square obstacles limit the possibility of bacteria to reorient during tumbling events to an area where channels cross. Thus, by varying the geometry of the lattice it might be possible to control the dispersal of cells. We present a theoretical model quantifying diffusive spreading of a run-and-tumble random walker in a square lattice. Numerical simulations validate our theoretical predictions for the dependence of the diffusion coefficient on the lattice geometry. We show that bacteria moving in square labyrinths exhibit enhanced dispersal as compared to unconfined cells. Importantly, confinement significantly extends the duration of the phase with strongly non-Gaussian diffusion, when the geometry of channels is imprinted in the density profiles of spreading cells. Finally, in good agreement with our theoretical findings, we observe the predicted behaviors in experiments with E. coli bacteria swimming in a square lattice labyrinth created in amicrofluidic device. Altogether, our comprehensive understanding of bacterial dispersal in a simple two-dimensional labyrinth makes the first step toward the analysis of more complex geometries relevant for real world applications. KW - diffusion KW - rectification KW - random walk KW - bacteria KW - confinement Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fphy.2019.00148 SN - 2296-424X SN - 0429-7725 VL - 7 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - GEN A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Gov, Nir S. A1 - Yochelis, Arik T1 - Why a Large-Scale Mode Can Be Essential for Understanding Intracellular Actin Waves T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - During the last decade, intracellular actin waves have attracted much attention due to their essential role in various cellular functions, ranging from motility to cytokinesis. Experimental methods have advanced significantly and can capture the dynamics of actin waves over a large range of spatio-temporal scales. However, the corresponding coarse-grained theory mostly avoids the full complexity of this multi-scale phenomenon. In this perspective, we focus on a minimal continuum model of activator–inhibitor type and highlight the qualitative role of mass conservation, which is typically overlooked. Specifically, our interest is to connect between the mathematical mechanisms of pattern formation in the presence of a large-scale mode, due to mass conservation, and distinct behaviors of actin waves. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 967 KW - nonlinear waves KW - actin polymerization KW - bifurcation theory KW - mass conservation KW - spatial localization KW - pattern formation KW - activator–inhibitor models Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-473588 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 967 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Gov, Nir S. A1 - Yochelis, Arik T1 - Why a Large-Scale Mode Can Be Essential for Understanding Intracellular Actin Waves JF - Cells N2 - During the last decade, intracellular actin waves have attracted much attention due to their essential role in various cellular functions, ranging from motility to cytokinesis. Experimental methods have advanced significantly and can capture the dynamics of actin waves over a large range of spatio-temporal scales. However, the corresponding coarse-grained theory mostly avoids the full complexity of this multi-scale phenomenon. In this perspective, we focus on a minimal continuum model of activator–inhibitor type and highlight the qualitative role of mass conservation, which is typically overlooked. Specifically, our interest is to connect between the mathematical mechanisms of pattern formation in the presence of a large-scale mode, due to mass conservation, and distinct behaviors of actin waves. KW - nonlinear waves KW - actin polymerization KW - bifurcation theory KW - mass conservation KW - spatial localization KW - pattern formation KW - activator–inhibitor models Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/cells9061533 SN - 2073-4409 VL - 9 IS - 6 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gómez-Nava, Luis A1 - Grossmann, Robert A1 - Hintsche, Marius A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Peruani, Fernando T1 - A novel approach to chemotaxis BT - active particles guided by internal clocks JF - epl : a letters journal exploring the frontiers of physics N2 - Motivated by the observation of non-exponential run-time distributions of bacterial swimmers, we propose a minimal phenomenological model for taxis of active particles whose motion is controlled by an internal clock. The ticking of the clock depends on an external concentration field, e.g., a chemical substance. We demonstrate that these particles can detect concentration gradients and respond to them by moving up- or down-gradient depending on the clock design, albeit measurements of these fields are purely local in space and instantaneous in time. Altogether, our results open a new route in the study of directional navigation: we show that the use of a clock to control motility actions represents a generic and versatile toolbox to engineer behavioral responses to external cues, such as light, chemical, or temperature gradients. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/130/68002 SN - 0295-5075 SN - 1286-4854 VL - 130 IS - 6 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Yochelis, Arik A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Gov, Nir S. T1 - Excitable solitons BT - annihilation, crossover, and nucleation of pulses in mass-conserving activator-inhibitor media JF - Physical review : E, Statistical, nonlinear and soft matter physics N2 - Excitable pulses are among the most widespread dynamical patterns that occur in many different systems, ranging from biological cells to chemical reactions and ecological populations. Traditionally, the mutual annihilation of two colliding pulses is regarded as their prototypical signature. Here we show that colliding excitable pulses may exhibit solitonlike crossover and pulse nucleation if the system obeys a mass conservation constraint. In contrast to previous observations in systems without mass conservation, these alternative collision scenarios are robustly observed over a wide range of parameters. We demonstrate our findings using a model of intracellular actin waves since, on time scales of wave propagations over the cell scale, cells obey conservation of actin monomers. The results provide a key concept to understand the ubiquitous occurrence of actin waves in cells, suggesting why they are so common, and why their dynamics is robust and long-lived. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.101.022213 SN - 2470-0045 SN - 2470-0053 VL - 101 IS - 2 PB - American Physical Society CY - Melville, NY ER - TY - GEN A1 - Alirezaeizanjani, Zahra A1 - Großmann, Robert A1 - Pfeifer, Veronika A1 - Hintsche, Marius A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Chemotaxis strategies of bacteria with multiple run modes T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Bacterial chemotaxis-a fundamental example of directional navigation in the living world-is key to many biological processes, including the spreading of bacterial infections. Many bacterial species were recently reported to exhibit several distinct swimming modes-the flagella may, for example, push the cell body or wrap around it. How do the different run modes shape the chemotaxis strategy of a multimode swimmer? Here, we investigate chemotactic motion of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida as a model organism. By simultaneously tracking the position of the cell body and the configuration of its flagella, we demonstrate that individual run modes show different chemotactic responses in nutrition gradients and, thus, constitute distinct behavioral states. On the basis of an active particle model, we demonstrate that switching between multiple run states that differ in their speed and responsiveness provides the basis for robust and efficient chemotaxis in complex natural habitats. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1418 KW - instability KW - flagellum KW - exploit KW - time Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-519098 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 22 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Alirezaeizanjani, Zahra A1 - Großmann, Robert A1 - Pfeifer, Veronika A1 - Hintsche, Marius A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Chemotaxis strategies of bacteria with multiple run modes JF - Science advances N2 - Bacterial chemotaxis-a fundamental example of directional navigation in the living world-is key to many biological processes, including the spreading of bacterial infections. Many bacterial species were recently reported to exhibit several distinct swimming modes-the flagella may, for example, push the cell body or wrap around it. How do the different run modes shape the chemotaxis strategy of a multimode swimmer? Here, we investigate chemotactic motion of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida as a model organism. By simultaneously tracking the position of the cell body and the configuration of its flagella, we demonstrate that individual run modes show different chemotactic responses in nutrition gradients and, thus, constitute distinct behavioral states. On the basis of an active particle model, we demonstrate that switching between multiple run states that differ in their speed and responsiveness provides the basis for robust and efficient chemotaxis in complex natural habitats. KW - exploit KW - flagellum KW - instability KW - time Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz6153 SN - 2375-2548 VL - 6 IS - 22 PB - American Association for the Advancement of Science CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schindler, Daniel A1 - Moldenhawer, Ted A1 - Stange, Maike A1 - Lepro, Valentino A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Holschneider, Matthias A1 - Huisinga, Wilhelm T1 - Analysis of protrusion dynamics in amoeboid cell motility by means of regularized contour flows JF - PLoS Computational Biology : a new community journal N2 - Amoeboid cell motility is essential for a wide range of biological processes including wound healing, embryonic morphogenesis, and cancer metastasis. It relies on complex dynamical patterns of cell shape changes that pose long-standing challenges to mathematical modeling and raise a need for automated and reproducible approaches to extract quantitative morphological features from image sequences. Here, we introduce a theoretical framework and a computational method for obtaining smooth representations of the spatiotemporal contour dynamics from stacks of segmented microscopy images. Based on a Gaussian process regression we propose a one-parameter family of regularized contour flows that allows us to continuously track reference points (virtual markers) between successive cell contours. We use this approach to define a coordinate system on the moving cell boundary and to represent different local geometric quantities in this frame of reference. In particular, we introduce the local marker dispersion as a measure to identify localized membrane expansions and provide a fully automated way to extract the properties of such expansions, including their area and growth time. The methods are available as an open-source software package called AmoePy, a Python-based toolbox for analyzing amoeboid cell motility (based on time-lapse microscopy data), including a graphical user interface and detailed documentation. Due to the mathematical rigor of our framework, we envision it to be of use for the development of novel cell motility models. We mainly use experimental data of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum to illustrate and validate our approach.
Author summary Amoeboid motion is a crawling-like cell migration that plays an important key role in multiple biological processes such as wound healing and cancer metastasis. This type of cell motility results from expanding and simultaneously contracting parts of the cell membrane. From fluorescence images, we obtain a sequence of points, representing the cell membrane, for each time step. By using regression analysis on these sequences, we derive smooth representations, so-called contours, of the membrane. Since the number of measurements is discrete and often limited, the question is raised of how to link consecutive contours with each other. In this work, we present a novel mathematical framework in which these links are described by regularized flows allowing a certain degree of concentration or stretching of neighboring reference points on the same contour. This stretching rate, the so-called local dispersion, is used to identify expansions and contractions of the cell membrane providing a fully automated way of extracting properties of these cell shape changes. We applied our methods to time-lapse microscopy data of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009268 SN - 1553-734X SN - 1553-7358 VL - 17 IS - 8 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pasemann, Gregor A1 - Flemming, Sven A1 - Alonso, Sergio A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Stannat, Wilhelm T1 - Diffusivity estimation for activator-inhibitor models BT - theory and application to intracellular dynamics of the actin cytoskeleton JF - Journal of nonlinear science N2 - A theory for diffusivity estimation for spatially extended activator-inhibitor dynamics modeling the evolution of intracellular signaling networks is developed in the mathematical framework of stochastic reaction-diffusion systems. In order to account for model uncertainties, we extend the results for parameter estimation for semilinear stochastic partial differential equations, as developed in Pasemann and Stannat (Electron J Stat 14(1):547-579, 2020), to the problem of joint estimation of diffusivity and parametrized reaction terms. Our theoretical findings are applied to the estimation of effective diffusivity of signaling components contributing to intracellular dynamics of the actin cytoskeleton in the model organism Dictyostelium discoideum. KW - Parametric drift estimation KW - Stochastic reaction– diffusion KW - systems KW - Maximum likelihood estimation KW - Actin cytoskeleton dynamics Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00332-021-09714-4 SN - 0938-8974 SN - 1432-1467 VL - 31 IS - 3 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Vilk, Ohad A1 - Aghion, Erez A1 - Avgar, Tal A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Nagel, Oliver A1 - Sabri, Adal A1 - Sarfati, Raphael A1 - Schwartz, Daniel K. A1 - Weiß, Matthias A1 - Krapf, Diego A1 - Nathan, Ran A1 - Metzler, Ralf A1 - Assaf, Michael T1 - Unravelling the origins of anomalous diffusion BT - from molecules to migrating storks JF - Physical Review Research N2 - Anomalous diffusion or, more generally, anomalous transport, with nonlinear dependence of the mean-squared displacement on the measurement time, is ubiquitous in nature. It has been observed in processes ranging from microscopic movement of molecules to macroscopic, large-scale paths of migrating birds. Using data from multiple empirical systems, spanning 12 orders of magnitude in length and 8 orders of magnitude in time, we employ a method to detect the individual underlying origins of anomalous diffusion and transport in the data. This method decomposes anomalous transport into three primary effects: long-range correlations (“Joseph effect”), fat-tailed probability density of increments (“Noah effect”), and nonstationarity (“Moses effect”). We show that such a decomposition of real-life data allows us to infer nontrivial behavioral predictions and to resolve open questions in the fields of single-particle tracking in living cells and movement ecology. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.033055 SN - 2643-1564 VL - 4 IS - 3 SP - 033055-1 EP - 033055-16 PB - American Physical Society CY - College Park, MD ER - TY - GEN A1 - Vilk, Ohad A1 - Aghion, Erez A1 - Avgar, Tal A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Nagel, Oliver A1 - Sabri, Adal A1 - Sarfati, Raphael A1 - Schwartz, Daniel K. A1 - Weiß, Matthias A1 - Krapf, Diego A1 - Nathan, Ran A1 - Metzler, Ralf A1 - Assaf, Michael T1 - Unravelling the origins of anomalous diffusion BT - from molecules to migrating storks T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Anomalous diffusion or, more generally, anomalous transport, with nonlinear dependence of the mean-squared displacement on the measurement time, is ubiquitous in nature. It has been observed in processes ranging from microscopic movement of molecules to macroscopic, large-scale paths of migrating birds. Using data from multiple empirical systems, spanning 12 orders of magnitude in length and 8 orders of magnitude in time, we employ a method to detect the individual underlying origins of anomalous diffusion and transport in the data. This method decomposes anomalous transport into three primary effects: long-range correlations (“Joseph effect”), fat-tailed probability density of increments (“Noah effect”), and nonstationarity (“Moses effect”). We show that such a decomposition of real-life data allows us to infer nontrivial behavioral predictions and to resolve open questions in the fields of single-particle tracking in living cells and movement ecology. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1303 Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-577643 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 1303 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Moreno, Eduardo A1 - Großmann, Robert A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Alonso, Sergio T1 - From single to collective motion of social amoebae BT - a computational study of interacting cells JF - Frontiers in physics N2 - The coupling of the internal mechanisms of cell polarization to cell shape deformations and subsequent cell crawling poses many interdisciplinary scientific challenges. Several mathematical approaches have been proposed to model the coupling of both processes, where one of the most successful methods relies on a phase field that encodes the morphology of the cell, together with the integration of partial differential equations that account for the polarization mechanism inside the cell domain as defined by the phase field. This approach has been previously employed to model the motion of single cells of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, a widely used model organism to study actin-driven motility and chemotaxis of eukaryotic cells. Besides single cell motility, Dictyostelium discoideum is also well-known for its collective behavior. Here, we extend the previously introduced model for single cell motility to describe the collective motion of large populations of interacting amoebae by including repulsive interactions between the cells. We performed numerical simulations of this model, first characterizing the motion of single cells in terms of their polarity and velocity vectors. We then systematically studied the collisions between two cells that provided the basic interaction scenarios also observed in larger ensembles of interacting amoebae. Finally, the relevance of the cell density was analyzed, revealing a systematic decrease of the motility with density, associated with the formation of transient cell clusters that emerge in this system even though our model does not include any attractive interactions between cells. This model is a prototypical active matter system for the investigation of the emergent collective dynamics of deformable, self-driven cells with a highly complex, nonlinear coupling of cell shape deformations, self-propulsion and repulsive cell-cell interactions. Understanding these self-organization processes of cells like their autonomous aggregation is of high relevance as collective amoeboid motility is part of wound healing, embryonic morphogenesis or pathological processes like the spreading of metastatic cancer cells. KW - cell motility KW - cell polarity KW - reaction-diffusion models KW - cell-cell KW - interactions KW - phase field model KW - collective motion KW - active matter Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fphy.2021.750187 SN - 2296-424X VL - 9 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heinsohn, Natascha Katharina A1 - Niedl, Robert Raimund A1 - Anielski, Alexander A1 - Lisdat, Fred A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Electrophoretic mu PAD for purification and analysis of DNA samples JF - Biosensors : open access journal N2 - In this work, the fabrication and characterization of a simple, inexpensive, and effective microfluidic paper analytic device (mu PAD) for monitoring DNA samples is reported. The glass microfiber-based chip has been fabricated by a new wax-based transfer-printing technique and an electrode printing process. It is capable of moving DNA effectively in a time-dependent fashion. The nucleic acid sample is not damaged by this process and is accumulated in front of the anode, but not directly on the electrode. Thus, further DNA processing is feasible. The system allows the DNA to be purified by separating it from other components in sample mixtures such as proteins. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that DNA can be moved through several layers of the glass fiber material. This proof of concept will provide the basis for the development of rapid test systems, e.g., for the detection of pathogens in water samples. KW - microfluidic paper analytic device (mu PAD) KW - patterning glass microfiber KW - fiber-electrophoresis chip KW - DNA KW - imprinted electrodes KW - cross layer chip KW - polymerase chain reaction (PCR) KW - purification Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/bios12020062 SN - 2079-6374 VL - 12 IS - 2 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Moldenhawer, Ted A1 - Moreno, Eduardo A1 - Schindler, Daniel A1 - Flemming, Sven A1 - Holschneider, Matthias A1 - Huisinga, Wilhelm A1 - Alonso, Sergio A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - Spontaneous transitions between amoeboid and keratocyte-like modes of migration JF - Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology N2 - The motility of adherent eukaryotic cells is driven by the dynamics of the actin cytoskeleton. Despite the common force-generating actin machinery, different cell types often show diverse modes of locomotion that differ in their shape dynamics, speed, and persistence of motion. Recently, experiments in Dictyostelium discoideum have revealed that different motility modes can be induced in this model organism, depending on genetic modifications, developmental conditions, and synthetic changes of intracellular signaling. Here, we report experimental evidence that in a mutated D. discoideum cell line with increased Ras activity, switches between two distinct migratory modes, the amoeboid and fan-shaped type of locomotion, can even spontaneously occur within the same cell. We observed and characterized repeated and reversible switchings between the two modes of locomotion, suggesting that they are distinct behavioral traits that coexist within the same cell. We adapted an established phenomenological motility model that combines a reaction-diffusion system for the intracellular dynamics with a dynamic phase field to account for our experimental findings. KW - cell migration KW - amoeboid motility KW - keratocytle-like motility KW - modes of KW - migration KW - D. discoideum KW - actin dynamics Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2022.898351 SN - 2296-634X VL - 10 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Muraveva, Valeriia A1 - Bekir, Marek A1 - Lomadze, Nino A1 - Großmann, Robert A1 - Beta, Carsten A1 - Santer, Svetlana T1 - Interplay of diffusio- and thermo-osmotic flows generated by single light stimulus JF - Applied physics letters N2 - Flow control is a highly relevant topic for micromanipulation of colloidal particles in microfluidic applications. Here, we report on a system that combines two-surface bound flows emanating from thermo-osmotic and diffusio-osmotic mechanisms. These opposing flows are generated at a gold surface immersed into an aqueous solution containing a photo-sensitive surfactant, which is irradiated by a focused UV laser beam. At low power of incoming light, diffusio-osmotic flow due to local photo-isomerization of the surfactant dominates, resulting in a flow pattern oriented away from the irradiated area. In contrast, thermo-osmotic flow takes over due to local heating of the gold surface at larger power, consequently inducing a flow pointing toward the hotspot. In this way, this system allows one to reversibly switch from outward to inward liquid flow with an intermittent range of zero flow at which tracer particles undergo thermal motion by just tuning the laser intensity only. Our work, thus, demonstrates an optofluidic system for flow generation with a high degree of controllability that is necessary to transport particles precisely to desired locations, thereby opening innovative possibilities to generate advanced microfluidic applications. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0090229 SN - 0003-6951 SN - 1077-3118 VL - 120 IS - 23 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER -