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Comment
. 2016 Feb 9:5:e14169.
doi: 10.7554/eLife.14169.

Phototaxis: Life in focus

Carol Dieckmann  1 , Telsa Mittelmeier  1
Affiliations
Comment

Phototaxis: Life in focus

Carol Dieckmann et al. Elife. .

Abstract

Single-celled photosynthetic bacteria determine the direction of incoming light by acting as lenses.

Keywords: Cyanobacteria; Micro-optics; Phototaxis; Signal transduction; Synechocystis sp PCC6803; Thermosynechococcus elongatus; biophysics; infectious disease; microbiology; structural biology.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Single-celled photosynthetic bacteria acting as lenses.
Schuergers et al. illuminated Synechocystis cells on an agar surface with a light source from the direction marked with a red arrow. Each cell, acting as a lens, focused the light on the rear edge of the cell (white arrows), and moved toward the light. A strong laser light from above (red circle in center), caused cells entering the small laser-illuminated area on the agar to reverse direction. (See figure 4 in Schuergers et al., 2016 for full details).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

  • Cyanobacteria use micro-optics to sense light direction.
    Schuergers N, Lenn T, Kampmann R, Meissner MV, Esteves T, Temerinac-Ott M, Korvink JG, Lowe AR, Mullineaux CW, Wilde A. Schuergers N, et al. Elife. 2016 Feb 9;5:e12620. doi: 10.7554/eLife.12620. Elife. 2016. PMID: 26858197 Free PMC article.

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