Studying Protista WBR and Repair Using Physarum polycephalum

Megan M Sperry; Nirosha J Murugan; Michael Levin

doi:10.1007/978-1-0716-2172-1_3

Studying Protista WBR and Repair Using Physarum polycephalum

Methods Mol Biol. 2022:2450:51-67. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-2172-1_3.

Authors

Megan M Sperry^{1

2}, Nirosha J Murugan^{3

4}, Michael Levin^{5

6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA.
² Department of Biology, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA.
³ Department of Biology, Algoma University, Sault Ste. Marie, ON, Canada. nirosha.murugan@algomau.ca.
⁴ Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA. nirosha.murugan@algomau.ca.
⁵ Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA. michael.levin@tufts.edu.
⁶ Department of Biology, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA. michael.levin@tufts.edu.
⁷ Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA. michael.levin@tufts.edu.

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.

Keywords: Extract; Injury; Networks; Regeneration; Signaling; Slime mould.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adaptation, Physiological
Models, Biological
Physarum polycephalum*