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Updated: May 27, 2026

Biophysical Characterization of Flagellar Motor Functions
Published on: January 18, 2017
Emergence of synchronized beating during the regrowth of eukaryotic flagella
Raymond E Goldstein1, Marco Polin, Idan Tuval
1Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
A fundamental issue in the biology of eukaryotic flagella is the origin of synchronized beating observed in tissues and organisms containing multiple flagella. Recent studies of the biflagellate unicellular alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii provided the first evidence that the interflagellar coupling responsible for synchronization is of hydrodynamic origin. To investigate this mechanism in detail, we study here synchronization in Chlamydomonas as its flagella slowly regrow after mechanically induced self-scission. The duration of synchronized intervals is found to be strongly dependent on flagellar length. Analysis within a stochastic model of coupled phase oscillators is used to extract the length dependence of the interflagellar coupling and the intrinsic beat frequencies of the two flagella. Physical and biological considerations that may explain these results are proposed.
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