著者

Junko Kamiguri Noriko Tsuchiya Ruri Hidema Masatoshi Tachibana Zenji Yatabe Masahiko Shoji Chihiro Hashimoto Robert Bernard Pansu Hideharu Ushiki

出版者

The Biophysical Society of Japan

雑誌

BIOPHYSICS (ISSN:13492942)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.8, pp.1-9, 2012 (Released:2012-01-17)

参考文献数

17

被引用文献数

3 3

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The contraction process of living Vorticella sp. has been investigated by image processing using a high-speed video camera. In order to express the temporal change in the stalk length resulting from the contraction, a damped spring model and a nucleation and growth model are applied. A double exponential is deduced from a conventional damped spring model, while a stretched exponential is newly proposed from a nucleation and growth model. The stretched exponential function is more suitable for the curve fitting and suggests a more particular contraction mechanism in which the contraction of the stalk begins near the cell body and spreads downwards along the stalk. The index value of the stretched exponential is evaluated in the range from 1 to 2 in accordance with the model in which the contraction undergoes through nucleation and growth in a one-dimensional space.