@article{VilkAghionAvgaretal.2022, author = {Vilk, Ohad and Aghion, Erez and Avgar, Tal and Beta, Carsten and Nagel, Oliver and Sabri, Adal and Sarfati, Raphael and Schwartz, Daniel K. and Weiß, Matthias and Krapf, Diego and Nathan, Ran and Metzler, Ralf and Assaf, Michael}, title = {Unravelling the origins of anomalous diffusion}, series = {Physical Review Research}, volume = {4}, journal = {Physical Review Research}, number = {3}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, address = {College Park, MD}, issn = {2643-1564}, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.033055}, pages = {033055-1 -- 033055-16}, year = {2022}, abstract = {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.}, language = {en} } @article{CherstvyNagelBetaetal.2018, author = {Cherstvy, Andrey G. and Nagel, Oliver and Beta, Carsten and Metzler, Ralf}, title = {Non-Gaussianity, population heterogeneity, and transient superdiffusion in the spreading dynamics of amoeboid cells}, series = {Physical chemistry, chemical physics : a journal of European Chemical Societies}, volume = {20}, journal = {Physical chemistry, chemical physics : a journal of European Chemical Societies}, number = {35}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {1463-9076}, doi = {10.1039/c8cp04254c}, pages = {23034 -- 23054}, year = {2018}, abstract = {What is the underlying diffusion process governing the spreading dynamics and search strategies employed by amoeboid cells? Based on the statistical analysis of experimental single-cell tracking data of the two-dimensional motion of the Dictyostelium discoideum amoeboid cells, we quantify their diffusive behaviour based on a number of standard and complementary statistical indicators. We compute the ensemble- and time-averaged mean-squared displacements (MSDs) of the diffusing amoebae cells and observe a pronounced spread of short-time diffusion coefficients and anomalous MSD-scaling exponents for individual cells. The distribution functions of the cell displacements, the long-tailed distribution of instantaneous speeds, and the velocity autocorrelations are also computed. In particular, we observe a systematic superdiffusive short-time behaviour for the ensemble- and time-averaged MSDs of the amoeboid cells. Also, a clear anti-correlation of scaling exponents and generalised diffusivity values for different cells is detected. Most significantly, we demonstrate that the distribution function of the cell displacements has a strongly non-Gaussian shape andusing a rescaled spatio-temporal variablethe cell-displacement data collapse onto a universal master curve. The current analysis of single-cell motions can be implemented for quantifying diffusive behaviours in other living-matter systems, in particular, when effects of active transport, non-Gaussian displacements, and heterogeneity of the population are involved in the dynamics.}, language = {en} } @article{NagelFreyGerhardtetal.2019, author = {Nagel, Oliver and Frey, Manuel and Gerhardt, Matthias and Beta, Carsten}, title = {Harnessing Motile Amoeboid Cells as Trucks for Microtransport and -Assembly}, series = {Advanced science}, volume = {6}, journal = {Advanced science}, number = {3}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {2198-3844}, doi = {10.1002/advs.201801242}, pages = {7}, year = {2019}, abstract = {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.}, language = {en} } @misc{LeproNagelKlumppetal.2019, author = {Lepro, Valentino and Nagel, Oliver and Klumpp, Stefan and Lipowsky, Reinhard and Beta, Carsten}, title = {Cooperative Transport by Amoeboid Cells}, series = {Biophysical journal}, volume = {116}, journal = {Biophysical journal}, number = {3}, publisher = {Cell Press}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {0006-3495}, doi = {10.1016/j.bpj.2018.11.682}, pages = {122A -- 122A}, year = {2019}, language = {en} } @article{NagelGuvenThevesetal.2014, author = {Nagel, Oliver and Guven, Can and Theves, Matthias and Driscoll, Meghan and Losert, Wolfgang and Beta, Carsten}, title = {Geometry-driven polarity in motile amoeboid cells}, series = {PLoS one}, volume = {9}, journal = {PLoS one}, number = {12}, publisher = {PLoS}, address = {San Fransisco}, issn = {1932-6203}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0113382}, pages = {20}, year = {2014}, abstract = {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.}, language = {en} }