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Lookup NU author(s): Jason Bains, Professor Andrew Baggaley, Dr Otti CrozeORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2025 Quick et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Regulated motility is vital for many cells—both for unicellular microbes and for cells within multicellular bodies. Different conditions require different rates and directions of movement. For the microbial predator Capsaspora owczarzaki, its motility is likely essential for predation. This organism has been shown to prey on diverse organisms, including the schistosome parasites that co-reside with it in Biomphalaria glabrata snails. Capsaspora is also one of the closest living unicellular relatives of animals. This phylogenic placement makes Capsaspora’s motility an attractive target for understanding the evolution of motility in animal cells. Until now, little was known of how Capsaspora regulates its rate and direction of motility. Here we found that it exhibits chemokinesis (increased movement in response to chemical factors) in response to proteins released from prey cells. Chemokinesis also occurs in response to pure proteins—including bovine serum albumin. We found that this chemokinesis behavior is dependent on Capsaspora cell density, which suggests that the regulated motility is a cooperative behavior (possibly to improve cooperative feeding). We developed a mathematical model of Capsaspora motility and found that chemokinesis can benefit Capsaspora predation. In this model, Capsaspora moved in random trajectories. Chemotaxis (directional motility along a chemical gradient toward prey) is likely to synergize with this chemokinesis to further improve predation. Finally, we quantitatively analyzed Capsaspora’s previously reported chemotaxis behavior. These findings lay a foundation for characterizing the mechanisms of regulated motility in a predator of a human pathogen and a model for the ancestor of animals.
Author(s): Quick SR, Bains JS, Gerdt C, Walker B, Goldstone EB, Jakuszeit T, Baggaley AW, Croze OA, Gerdt JP
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: PLoS Pathogens
Year: 2025
Volume: 21
Issue: 9
Online publication date: 03/09/2025
Acceptance date: 09/08/2025
Date deposited: 16/09/2025
ISSN (print): 1553-7366
ISSN (electronic): 1553-7374
Publisher: Public Library of Science
URL: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1013440
DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1013440
Data Access Statement: All data are available in IU DataCore (https://doi.org/10.5967/sh2f-xt93)
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