Bioelectric Control of Ciliary Activity

Nervous control of ciliary beating by Cl-, Ca2+ and calmodulin inTritonia diomedea

“…This is despite the fact that beating cilia have numerous and critical roles in most organisms ranging from locomotion in ciliates (Eckert, 1972;Noguchi et al, 1991;Pernberg and Machemer, 1995), marine invertebrate larvae (Mackie et al, 1969;Mackie et al, 1976;Wada et al, 1997) and nudibranchs (Audesirk, 1978;Willows et al, 1997) to the chordate development of left-right symmetry, circulation of cerebral spinal fluid spinal in brain ventricles, clearing of mucus in airways and movement of eggs along fallopian tubes (IbanezTallon et al, 2003;Snell et al, 2004).…”

“…However, single cell organisms (e.g. Paramecium and Didinium nasutum) respond to depolarization by reversing cilia stroke direction and increasing beat frequency (Eckert, 1972;Pernberg and Machemer, 1995). We were unable to record changes in CPE membrane potentials using the whole cell patch clamp in current clamp due to the inherently leaky nature of the cells.…”

“…A key step in increasing CBF in multicellular organisms or reversing directions, in e.g. paramecium (Eckert, 1972), is an increase in internal free Ca 2+ (Verdugo, 1980;Villalon et al, 1989;Salathe and Bookman, 1995;Korngreen and Priel, 1996). Studies of CBF have yielded different possible mechanisms for increasing internal free Ca 2+ , including the phospholipase C (PLC) pathway (Christopher et al, 1999;Zagoory et al, 2001), both protein kinase C (PKC) (Gertsberg et al, 1997;Christopher et al, 1999;Barrera et al, 2004) and protein kinase A (PKA) (Braiman et al, 1998;Zagoory et al, 2002;Lieb et al, 2002), inositol 1,4,5-triphosphate (Barrera et al, 2004), nitrous oxide (Uzlander and Priel, 1999;Runer and Lindberg, 1999;Doran et al, 2003) and cAMP (Stommel and Stephens, 1985;Aiello, 1990).…”

Diversity of extracellular proteins during the transition from the ‘proto-apicomplexan’ alveolates to the apicomplexan obligate parasites

“…For example, Plasmodium sporozoites interact with a diverse set of host tissues -firstly salivary gland tissue in the mosquito, and subsequently tropism to hepatocytes in the liver -utilizing receptor-mediated recognition of target cells (reviewed in Sinnis and Coppi, 2007). Alveolate recognition of the environment also includes positive and negative taxis in response to gradients of nutrients, toxins, light and gravity (Eckert, 1972;Fenchel and Finlay, 1984;Francis and Hennessey, 1995;Hemmersbach et al 1999;Selbach and Kuhlmann, 1999;Cadetti et al 2000;reviewed in Echevarria et al 2014), as well as avoidance interactions with predators (Knoll et al 1991;Hamel et al 2011). A G-protein-coupled receptor having 7-transmembrane domains was characterized in Tetrahymena and shown to be involved in chemoattraction (Lampert et al 2011).…”

Thermosensory Behaviour in Paramecium tetraurelia: a Quantitative Assay and Some Factors that Influence Thermal Avoidance

“…Extensive electrophysiological and genetic studies of Paramecium have yielded strong evidence that a variety of chemical and physical stimuli cause depolarization of the surface membrane and the opening of a voltage-sensitive Ca2+ channel. The resulting influx of Ca2+ raises the internal Ca2+ concentration above a critical value, bringing about a temporary reversal in the direction of the effective stroke of the several thousand cilia and a reversal in the swimming direction, followed by forward motion in a new direction (Naitoh, 1968;Eckert, 1972;Kung et al, 1975;Nelson & Kung, 1978). The result of such avoiding reactions is net motion away from the stimulus.…”