Vol. 4, Issue 1

Patel, E. (2020). Chemotaxis of C. reinhardtii Towards AHLs. The Young Researcher, 4 (1), 84-93. 

Abstract
Quorum sensing is a widespread phenomenon in various environments, allowing organisms to display symbiosis, pathogenicity, etc. This mechanism has recently been of great interest with the newfound discovery that quorum sensing not only occurs in prokaryotic organisms like bacteria, but also eukaryotes like the green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. With this novel information, the question remains regarding how these eukaryotes and prokaryotes interact amongst one another, potentially enhancing human health, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, etc. Through a chemo taxis assay using liquid algae cultures and capillary tubing along with pixel density analysis using the image processing program ImageJ, the movement of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii was tested in response to molecules released by bacteria during quorum sensing called AHLs. Through various assays of AHLs, sucrose, and deionized water, the results were shown to be statistically insignifi- cant. However, the setup of the experiment showed great potential and provides a promising future for the direction of this research.

Keywords
: quorum sensing, chemotaxis, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, AHLs, pixel density

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ISSN 2560-9815 (Print)
ISSN 2560-9823 (Online)

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