Cell behavior in tree-dimensional object by large amoeboid unicellular organism

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K13864
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Biological physics/Chemical physics/Soft matter physics
• Research Institution: Future University-Hakodate
• Principal Investigator: TAKAGI Seiji 公立はこだて未来大学, システム情報科学部, 准教授 (80372259)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 真正粘菌 / 三次元 / 細胞行動 / ネットワーク

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In nature, true slime molds live in three-dimensionally intricate places. The behavior of the organism in the three-dimensional space may differ from that in the two-dimensional plane that has been employed in experiments so far. Here, we developed an experimental and observation method for the three-dimensional behavior of true slime mold and studied tubular network formations in three-dimensional space. We found that the organism in three-dimensional space tended to form more tubes and more branching points at the places other than the food source nodes, compared with the that in the two-dimensional space. As a result, some topologies of the tubular network formed in the tree-dimensional space were hard to be realized in two-dimensional space.

Free Research Field

生物物理

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

生物の実験はその簡便さから先ずは二次元的な平面状の実験系で行われ傾向にある．注目すべき成果を上げている真正粘菌の実験も二次元上で行われてきたが，その本来の生活環境は三次元的に入り組んだ場所である．より技術的に困難な三次元空間における実験方法および観察方法を開発することは，その生物の本来の能力を引き出し，明らかにする上で重要である．また，三次元における粘菌のネットワークデザインは二次元と比べより多少複雑であるが，全体のつながりはより強固になることが分かった．今後，三次元空間始めそれ以上の次元の空間におけるネットワーク形成への粘菌アルゴリズムの応用が考えられる．