Studying Protista WBR and Repair Using Physarum polycephalum

Abstract

Physarum polycephalum is a protist slime mould that exhibits a high degree of responsiveness to its environment through a complex network of tubes and cytoskeletal components that coordinate behavior across its unicellular, multinucleated body. Physarum has been used to study decision making, problem solving, and mechanosensation in aneural biological systems. The robust generative and repair capacities of Physarum also enable the study of whole-body regeneration within a relatively simple model system. Here we describe methods for growing, imaging, quantifying, and sampling Physarum that are adapted for investigating regeneration and repair.

Hydrophobic Barriers for Directing Physarum polycephalum Propulsion and Navigation

“…polycephalum. In the “plasmodial state”, the oatmeal with the grown plasmodium was collected with a spatula or agar gel with the plasmodium was sliced into 1 × 1 cm 2 pieces and placed on freshly prepared non-nutrient agar gel (2% w/v) . Approximately 15 oatmeal flakes were placed on the non-nutrient agar to supply sufficient nutrients (Figure S2).…”

“…In the “plasmodial state”, the oatmeal with the grown plasmodium was collected with a spatula or agar gel with the plasmodium was sliced into 1 × 1 cm 2 pieces and placed on freshly prepared non-nutrient agar gel (2% w/v). 31 Approximately 15 oatmeal flakes were placed on the non-nutrient agar to supply sufficient nutrients ( Figure S2 ). For P. polycephalum in the “sclerotial state”, a drop of distilled water was added to the filter paper where the individual was grown, and it was then cultured in non-nutrient agar to form plasmodium.…”