Out-of-plane beating components of active axonemes isolated from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Cilia and flagella are ubiquitous in the living world. They are essential for micro-scale driven transport of fluids or cells by cilia/flagellar beating. Their slender bodies are composed of a microtubule/molecular motor structure that when taken independently are called an axoneme. Axonemes move by bending waves that emerge from the interplay between internal stresses generated by dynein motor proteins . Here we use the novel multi-plane phase contrast imaging technique to record the three dimensional beating pattern of isolated axonemes from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii that beat in the vicinity of a substrate. We measure the torsion of the axoneme along the contour length with high spatiotemporal resolution. High precision information on out-of-plane beating component of axonemes allows us to check the validity of the resistive-force theory.