2012/04/27 by Christophe Eloy, Eric Lauga · 105 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Physics and Astronomy · #Biology #Cell biology #Cilium #Classical mechanics #Dimensionless quantity #Genetic and Kidney Cyst Diseases #Kinematics #Mechanics #Micro and Nano Robotics #Microtubule and mitosis dynamics #Physics #Rigidity (electromagnetism) #Work (physics) #cond-mat.soft #physics.bio-ph #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.109.038101
published in Physical Review Letters 109(3), 038101 (American Physical Society) · 4 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2012/04/27 · openalex publication_date 2012/07/17 · arxiv updated 2012/07/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In a variety of biological processes, eukaryotic cells use cilia to transport flow. Although cilia have a remarkably conserved internal molecular structure, experimental observations report very diverse kinematics. To address this diversity, we determine numerically the kinematics and energetics of the most efficient cilium. Specifically, we compute the time-periodic deformation of a wall-bound elastic filament leading to transport of a surrounding fluid at minimum energetic cost, where the cost is taken to be the positive work done by all internal molecular motors. The optimal kinematics are found to strongly depend on the cilium bending rigidity through a single dimensionless number, the Sperm number, and closely resemble the two-stroke ciliary beating pattern observed experimentally.