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Coordinated Flagellar and Ciliary Beating in the Protozoon Tritrichomonas foetus 1
Author(s) -
MONTEIROLEAL LUIZ H.,
FARINA MARCOS,
BENCHIMOL MARLENE,
KACHAR BECHARA,
SOUZA WANDERLEY
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
journal of eukaryotic microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.067
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1550-7408
pISSN - 1066-5234
DOI - 10.1111/j.1550-7408.1995.tb01621.x
Subject(s) - flagellum , tritrichomonas foetus , biology , cilium , anatomy , beat (acoustics) , microbiology and biotechnology , biophysics , optics , physics , fetus , genetics , bacteria , pregnancy
.Tritrichomonas foetus is a flagellated protozoon found in urogenital tract of cattle. Its free movement in liquid medium is powered by the coordinated movement of three flagella projecting towards the anterior region of the cell, and one recurrent flagellum that forms a junction with the cell body and ends as a free projection in the posterior region of the cell. We have used video microscopy and digital image processing to analyze the relationships between the movements of these flagella. The anterior flagella beat in a ciliary type pattern displaying effective and recovery strokes, while the recurrent flagellum beats in a typical flagellar wave form. One of the three anterior flagella has a distinctive pattern of beating. It beats straight in its forward direction as opposed to the ample beats performed by the others. Frequency measurements obtained from cells swimming in a viscous medium shows that the beating frequency of the recurrent flagelium is approximate twice the frequency for the three anterior flagella. We also observed that the costa and the axostyle do not show any active motion. On the contrary, they form a cytoskeletal base for the anchoring and orientation of the flagella.