Spatiotemporal dynamics of glycolytic waves provides new insights into the interactions between immobilized yeast cells and gels

Synchronisation of glycolytic activity in yeast cells

Glycolysis is the central metabolic pathway of almost every cell and organism. Under appropriate conditions, glycolytic oscillations may occur in individual cells as well as in entire cell populations or tissues. In many biological systems, glycolytic oscillations drive coherent oscillations of other metabolites, for instance in cardiomyocytes near anorexia, or in pancreas where they lead to a pulsatile release of insulin. Oscillations at the population or tissue level require the cells to synchronize their metabolism. We review the progress achieved in studying a model organism for glycolytic oscillations, namely yeast. Oscillations may occur on the level of individual cells as well as on the level of the cell population. In yeast, the cell-to-cell interaction is realized by diffusion-mediated intercellular communication via a messenger molecule. The present mini-review focuses on the synchronisation of glycolytic oscillations in yeast. Synchronisation is a quorum-sensing phenomenon because the collective oscillatory behaviour of a yeast cell population ceases when the cell density falls below a threshold. We review the question, under which conditions individual cells in a sparse population continue or cease to oscillate. Furthermore, we provide an overview of the pathway leading to the onset of synchronized oscillations. We also address the effects of spatial inhomogeneities (e.g., the formation of spatial clusters) on the collective dynamics, and also review the emergence of travelling waves of glycolytic activity. Finally, we briefly review the approaches used in numerical modelling of synchronized cell populations.

Intercellular communication induces glycolytic synchronization waves between individually oscillating cells

Many organs have internal structures with spatially differentiated and sometimes temporally synchronized groups of cells. The mechanisms leading to such differentiation and coordination are not well understood. Here we design a diffusion-limited microfluidic system to mimic a multicellular organ structure with peripheral blood flow and test whether a group of individually oscillating yeast cells could form subpopulations of spatially differentiated and temporally synchronized cells. Upon substrate addition, the dynamic response at single-cell level shows glycolytic oscillations, leading to wave fronts traveling through the monolayered population and to synchronized communities at well-defined positions in the cell chamber. A detailed mechanistic model with the architectural structure of the flow chamber incorporated successfully predicts the spatial-temporal experimental data, and allows for a molecular understanding of the observed phenomena. The intricate interplay of intracellular biochemical reaction networks leading to the oscillations, combined with intercellular communication via metabolic intermediates and fluid dynamics of the reaction chamber, is responsible for the generation of the subpopulations of synchronized cells. This mechanism, as analyzed from the model simulations, is experimentally tested using different concentrations of cyanide stress solutions. The results are reproducible and stable, despite cellular heterogeneity, and the spontaneous community development is reminiscent of a zoned cell differentiation often observed in multicellular organs.

Advanced Chemical Computing Using Discrete Turing Patterns in Arrays of Coupled Cells

We examine dynamical switching among discrete Turing patterns that enable chemical computing performed by mass-coupled reaction cells arranged as arrays with various topological configurations: three coupled cells in a cyclic array, four coupled cells in a linear array, four coupled cells in a cyclic array, and four coupled cells in a branched array. Each cell is operating as a continuous stirred tank reactor, within which the glycolytic reaction takes place, represented by a skeleton inhibitor-activator model where ADP plays the role of activator and ATP is the inhibitor. The mass coupling between cells is assumed to be operating in three possible transport regimes: (i) equal transport coefficients of the inhibitor and activator (ii) slightly faster transport of the activator, and (iii) strongly faster transport of the inhibitor. Each cellular array is characterized by two pairs of tunable parameters, the rate coefficients of the autocatalytic and inhibitory steps, and the transport coefficients of the coupling. Using stability and bifurcation analysis we identified conditions for occurrence of discrete Turing patterns associated with non-uniform stationary states. We found stable symmetric and/or asymmetric discrete Turing patterns coexisting with stable uniform periodic oscillations. To switch from one of the coexisting stable regimes to another we use carefully targeted perturbations, which allows us to build systems of logic gates specific to each topological type of the array, which in turn enables to perform advanced modes of chemical computing. By combining chemical computing techniques in the arrays with glycolytic excitable channels, we propose a cellular assemblage design for advanced chemical computing.

Partial synchronisation of glycolytic oscillations in yeast cell populations

The transition between synchronized and asynchronous behaviour of immobilized yeast cells of the strain Saccharomyces carlsbergensis was investigated by monitoring the autofluorescence of the coenzyme NADH. In populations of intermediate cell densities the individual cells remained oscillatory, whereas on the level of the cell population both a partially synchronized and an asynchronous state were accessible for experimental studies. In the partially synchronized state, the mean oscillatory frequency was larger than that of the cells in the asynchronous state. This suggests that synchronisation occurred due to entrainment by the cells that oscillated more rapidly. This is typical for synchronisation due to phase advancement. Furthermore, the synchronisation of the frequency of the glycolytic oscillations preceded the synchronisation of their phases. However, the cells did not synchronize completely, as the distribution of the oscillatory frequencies only narrowed but did not collapse to a unique frequency. Cells belonging to spatially denser clusters showed a slightly enhanced local synchronisation during the episode of partial synchronisation. Neither the clusters nor a transition from partially synchronized glycolytic oscillations to travelling glycolytic waves did substantially affect the degree of partial synchronisation. Chimera states, i.e., the coexistence of a synchronized and an asynchronous part of the population, could not be found.

Reaction fronts of the autocatalytic hydrogenase reaction

We have built a model to describe the hydrogenase catalyzed, autocatalytic, reversible hydrogen oxidation reaction where one of the enzyme forms is the autocatalyst. The model not only reproduces the experimentally observed front properties, but also explains the found hydrogen ion dependence. Furthermore, by linear stability analysis, two different front types are found in good agreement with the experiments.

Collective and individual glycolytic oscillations in yeast cells encapsulated in alginate microparticles

Yeast cells were encapsulated into alginate microparticles of a few hundred micrometers diameter using a centrifuge-based droplet shooting device. We demonstrate the first experimental results of glycolytic oscillations in individual yeast cells immobilized in this way. We investigated both the individual and collective oscillatory behaviors at different cell densities. As the cell density increased, the amplitude of the individual oscillations increased while their period decreased, and the collective oscillations became more synchronized, with an order parameter close to 1 (indicating high synchrony). We also synthesized biphasic-Janus microparticles encapsulating yeast cells of different densities in each hemisphere. The cellular oscillations between the two hemispheres were entrained at both the individual and population levels. Such systems of cells encapsulated into microparticles are useful for investigating how cell-to-cell communication depends on the density and spatial distribution of cells.

Phospholipid fatty acids as physiological indicators of Paracoccus denitrificans encapsulated in silica sol-gel hydrogels

The phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) content was determined in samples of Paracoccus denitrificans encapsulated in silica hydrogel films prepared from prepolymerized tetramethoxysilane (TMOS). Immediately after encapsulation the total PLFA concentration was linearly proportional to the optical density (600 nm) of the input microbial suspension (R2 = 0.99). After 7 days this relationship remained linear, but with significantly decreased slope, indicating a higher extinction of bacteria in suspensions of input concentration 108 cells/mL and higher. trans-Fatty acids, indicators of cytoplasmatic membrane disturbances, were below the detection limit. The cy/pre ratio (i.e., ratio of cyclopropylated fatty acids (cy17:0 + cy19:0) to their metabolic precursors (16:1ω7 + 18:1ω7)), an indicator of the transition of the culture to a stationary growth-phase, decreased depending on co-immobilization of nutrients in the order phosphate buffer > mineral medium > Luria Broth rich medium. The ratio, too, was logarithmically proportional to cell concentration. These results confirm the applicability of total PLFA as an indicator for the determination of living biomass and cy/pre ratio for determination of nutrient limitation of microorganisms encapsulated in sol-gel matrices. This may be of interest for monitoring of sol-gel encapsulated bacteria proposed as optical recognition elements in biosensor construction, as well as other biotechnological applications.

Desynchronisation of glycolytic oscillations in yeast cell populations

Glycolytic oscillations of intact yeast cells of the strain Saccharomyces carlsbergensis were investigated at both the levels of cell populations and of individual cells. Individual cells showed glycolytic oscillations even at very low cell densities (e.g. 1.010⁵ cells/ml). By contrast, the collective behaviour on the population level was cell density-dependent: at high cell densities it is oscillatory, but below the threshold density of 1.010⁶ cells/ml the collective dynamics becomes quiescent. We demonstrate that the transition in the collective dynamics is caused by the desynchronisation of the oscillations of individual cells. This is characteristic for a Kuramoto transition. Spatially resolved measurements at low cell densities revealed that even cells that adhere to their neighbours oscillated with their own, independent frequencies and phases.