Microorganisms can escape from a dead end by swimming

Although microorganisms are too tiny to be seen by the naked eye, they are ubiquitous. It is still largely unknown how microorganisms can survive in intricate environments such as in the ground and inside of the body, despite the importance of such information.

Takuji Ishikawa and Kenji Kikuchi from the Graduate School of Engineering at Tohoku University have discovered that microorganisms with hair-like organelles called cilia can avoid entrapment in a dead end, from which they would otherwise never return.

By using experiments and numerical simulations, Ishikawa and Kikuchi have shown that microorganisms can ingeniously escape from a dead end by swimming. The ability to escape from a dead end can be found in many kinds of microorganisms with cilia.

These results indicate that microorganisms can find a way to survive even in intricate and challenging environments, where other creatures may become extinct, such as shallow water where a whale may become stuck. The results also pave the way to understanding the mechanism of the spread of infectious diseases.

This research was published online in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on 28 February 2018.

More information:
Takuji Ishikawa et al, Biomechanics of Tetrahymena escaping from a dead end, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2018). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.2368

Provided by Tohoku University