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Aerotaxis in the closest relatives of animals

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Kirkegaard, JB 
Bouillant, A 
Marron, AO 
Leptos, KC 
Goldstein, RE 

Abstract

As the closest unicellular relatives of animals, choanoflagellates serve as useful model organisms for understanding the evolution of animal multicellularity. An important factor in animal evolution was the increasing ocean oxygen levels in the Precambrian, which are thought to have influenced the emergence of complex multicellular life. As a first step in addressing these conditions, we study here the response of the colony-forming choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta to oxygen gradients. Using a microfluidic device that allows spatio-temporal variations in oxygen concentrations, we report the discovery that S. rosetta displays positive aerotaxis. Analysis of the spatial population distributions provides evidence for logarithmic sensing of oxygen, which enhances sensing in low oxygen neighborhoods. Analysis of search strategy models on the experimental colony trajectories finds that choanoflagellate aerotaxis is consistent with stochastic navigation, the statistics of which are captured using an effective continuous version based on classical run-and-tumble chemotaxis.

Description

Keywords

$\textit{S. rosetta}$, aerotaxis, biophysics, choanoflagellates, structural biology

Journal Title

eLife

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2050-084X
2050-084X

Volume Title

5

Publisher

eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
Sponsorship
European Research Council (247333)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/M017982/1)
Wellcome Trust (097855/Z/11/Z)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, St John’s College, European Research Council (Advanced Investigator Grant ID: 247333), Wellcome Trust (Senior Investigator Award)