Abstract for "An Integrative Computational Model
of Multiciliary Beating"
The coordinated beating of motile cilia is responsible for ovum transport in the oviduct,
transport of mucus in the respiratory tract and is the basis of motility in many
single-celled organisms. The beating of a single, motile cilium is achieved by the ATP-driven
activation cycles of thousands of dynein molecular motors that cause neighboring microtubule doublets within
the ciliary axoneme to slide relative to each other.
The precise nature of the spatial and temporal coordination of these
individual motors is still not completely understood. The emergent geometry and dynamics of ciliary beating is a consequence of
the coupling of these
internal force-generating motors,
the passive elastic properties of the axonemal structure, and the external viscous, incompressible fluid.
Here, we extend our integrative model of a single cilium that couples internal force generation with
the surrounding fluid to the investigation of multiciliary interaction. This computational model allows us to predict the
geometry of beating, along with the detailed description of the time-dependent flow field both near and away from the
cilia. We show that synchrony and metachrony can, indeed,
arise from hydrodynamic coupling. We also investigate the effects of viscosity and neighboring cilia on ciliary beat frequency.
Moreover, since we have precise flow information, we also measure the dependence of the total flow pumped per cilium per beat
upon parameters such as viscosity and ciliary spacing.