Trade-off between Plasticity and Velocity in Mycelial Growth
Sayumi Fukuda, Riho Yamamoto, Naoki Yanagisawa, Naoki Takaya, Yoshikatsu Sato, Meritxell Riquelme, Norio Takeshita
Abstract
Cell morphology, which is controlled by polarity and growth, is fundamental for all cellular functions. However how polarity and growth act cooperatively to control cell shape remains unclear. Here we investigated their relationship by analyzing hyphal tip growth of filamentous fungi growing inside extremely narrow 1 μm-width channels of microfluidic devices. We found that most fast growing hyphae often lost the cell polarity after emerging from the channels, whereas slow growing hyphae retained polarity and continued growing, indicating a trade-off between plasticity and velocity in mycelial growth. These results serve to understand fungal invasive growth into substrates or plant/animal cells, with direct impact on fungal biotechnology, ecology and pathogenicity.