In several large cells, of which egg cells are an important example, diffusion is inadequate for intracellular transport. Fruit fly eggs solve this problem by giving rise to a coherent circulatory flow called ‘cytoplasmic streaming’ that spans the cell’s entire ~200 μm scale. Cytoplasmic streaming is a striking example of fluid-structure interactions within living cells that is driven by the motion of nanometric motors transporting subcellular cargo along stiff biopolymers (microtubules) anchored at the cell boundary. Despite its ubiquity, the underlying fluid-structure interactions remain unclear. In this talk, I will outline a coarse-grained continuum theory that explains the emergence of such large-scale flows and elucidates how the emergent flow topology is influenced by microtubule density and cell geometry. The theory, which has the structure of an active boundary layer coupled to a bulk fluid, provides quantitative and experimentally testable predictions and is readily extended to other biological flows.
Zoom link: https://icts-res-in.zoom.us/j/84890206852?pwd=Z0tiZ1JZUFZXREZpak9sMEVsR0lwQT09
Meeting ID: 848 9020 6852
Passcode: 121312